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Talys wrote:
On the other hand, GW can't exist in its current size as a manufacturer of skirmish games, because there just isn't enough revenue. My FLGS (all of them) make way more money on 40k than WMH regardless of what people are playing, because a typical 40k player/collector spends many times what a game-in-a-box or WMH customer spends. My stores generally dislike GW for its trade practices, but there are not other companies that produce releases at the cadence their collector type customers are happy with, and those customers are very spendy.

GW has been very smart to front load the costs as well (though I think they went too far). So if someone starts and they end up not being one of the spendy types who sticks with it and provides consistent revenue, they already got a larger amount of money from that person before they quit. At the same time though, high barriers to entry start to erode recruitment rates. GW seems happy with how it's turned out, but their revenue is plunging and their dividend isn't sustainable.

There is probably a game size, a bit larger than Warmachine and a bit smaller than 40k that can be both a high price premium product and sell at good volumes and have a lower barrier to entry. During the 90s when GW grew from a British importer of D&D into an international retailer of their own miniatures, most of their games were like that. Bigger than Warmachine, smaller than current 40k/Fantasy.

I always thought the GW approach to army building was a fantastic marketing technique. You provide collectors with a nice frame work to collect and have this cycle of playing, buying and paint, playing again while you fill out your army. They even used to have loyalty schemes where if you got every slot on a force org chart filled, the codex for your next army book/codex was free.

GW decided to break away from this approach and concentrate on up front costs. Expensive books, splitting codexes into multiple volumes plus dataslates to get all the rules. They want to get someone in, get their money and it's okay if they quit, maybe buying a unit or two before they finally leave entirely.

Zach Coffell said it really well in his article on Motley Fool UK (a financial investment news and discussion site):

There is one Warren Buffet principle that leaves the investment thesis in Games Workshop crumbling… Buffett once said: “I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will”

Games Workshop’s great product offering meant success was its to lose, and unfortunately management seem to be doing their best to destroy these fantastic qualities from the inside.

The last 6 years has been GW giving its market share away with their intentional lowering of sales volume to save money, increase EPS and pay out larger dividends.

Making a second post for your edit:

 frozenwastes wrote:
I happen to think that the norm of the hobby going back to its origins is one where a person spearheads a complete game experience rather than relying on other people to supply opposing forces.

It isn't. It might have worked that way 50 years ago, but how it worked 50 years ago isn't relevant. The norm of the hobby in 2014 is that each player supplies their own army. This is true of pretty much every game in the market, not just GW games. It has been that way for at least 20-30 years, and there is no sign that this trend is going to change in the foreseeable future. Like it or not, the old days are gone.

And that the majority of game play that goes on is not publicly at stores, clubs or conventions, but at home, among friends.

Evidence for this? Specifically in the miniature wargame market, not gaming in general?

Furthermore it's also a departure from the norm for games in general, which tend to not expect people to rely on others to have a functional set of gaming pieces.

You're making the mistake of ignoring the difference between genres of games. Obviously board games work that way, but other genres don't. CCGs/LCGs follow the same "bring your own deck" model as miniatures games, RPGs make a default assumption that each player has their own stuff (and even when books are shared it's expected that you bring your own character), and obviously miniatures default to "bring your own army". And in all of these cases "bring your own stuff" is a long-term trend that is pretty much universal across all products in the genre, not just a weird temporary thing that everyone expects to end soon.

Maybe GW's numbers show them the same thing?

I doubt it. If GW's own numbers show that most customers paint and play at home then they'd be closing their retail stores as fast as possible. Keeping a marginally-profitable retail division around only makes sense if you assume that most customers are interested in the "store community" experience.

Peregrine wrote:that means either adopting the "bring your own army" approach, or keeping model counts low enough that most people can afford several armies.

No, that's a false dichotomy. How many pence is a Perry or a Victrix plastic infantry model? And those are from companies that have to out source their tooling and injection moulding. A company that already owns their tooling and injection moulding infrastructure could price even more competitively (if they so desired). The technology is all about driving down the margin cost of the next sprue produced. WGF has also made this work in the non-historical line. They've said that their zombies and survivors have outsold all other produces they've made combined. At 30 figures for $22. People get both the survivors and the zombies and get a lot of them. Zombies are fun in hordes, after all.

Furthermore, companies have been doing a great job marketing products meant to speed up painting. And with youtube and various blogs and communities, there has never been an easier time to learn how to paint fast.

Yes, finding people willing to try a game once is easy. But if I'm going to invest heavily in a game I expect to be able to play it frequently, not just once every few months after spending a lot of work trying to convince someone to give it a try. And that's a lot easier when you have a local community available to play with, instead of trying to convince random people to come have a kitchen table game with you.

I obviously disagree. I find people who are already miniature gamers tend to already be doing something they want to do. I don't try to unsell them on their project and get them to buy into my pet game. Instead, I tell them if they have a second army I could borrow, I'll be happy to play anytime and let them know I have a similar standing offer for what interests me. I guess just as certain GW employees will be better at others than closing the deal, I manage to succeed in the middle of nowhere in Canada while people complain about not finding opponents with a million or more people within an hour's travel of where they are. I think the difference is that I'm not doing the uphill battle of trying to peddle my game to people who are already happily playing something else.

I always find it funny when people talk about how they got their two demo forces for a new game and took it down to a local store and are shocked that the people who came there to play a different game aren't interested in trying it out. That really shouldn't surprise anyone.

This has very little to do with GW's segmentation of the market and a lot to do with GW's targeting of younger customers who aren't aware of the full range of products available and non-gamer family members who know even less.

When I talk about GW's customer base being segmented, I usually also talk about them being ignorant. This time I forgot. My bad.

But why should these things be separate?

There is no "should". There's just the goals of companies and individuals and their interests. It's in GW's interest to sell a complete package. It might not be in the gamer's best interest because if one part of the package lets them down, they might end up disappointed in the whole thing. It also tends to cost more to go for a complete package seller than to, for example, get miniatures from GW and paints from Vallejo. Then there's the ease of use side of things. A complete package should be ready to go. There's not really a "should" though. Just your goals and what meets them. I happen to think relying on a complete package makes you vulnerable to changes in the design ethos of the studio for your game, and often involves higher prices.

Keeping the models and rules separate only works in historical games

Sci-fi and fantasy is often just historical stuff with chrome added on. An infantry dude with a gun is still an infantry dude with a gun.

So if you want to keep miniatures and rules separate you have two choices:

You really like your false dichotomies, don't you?

[qoute]I don't really think that either of these options is an appealing one.

 Peregrine wrote:
Making a second post for your edit:

 frozenwastes wrote:
I happen to think that the norm of the hobby going back to its origins is one where a person spearheads a complete game experience rather than relying on other people to supply opposing forces.

It isn't. It might have worked that way 50 years ago, but how it worked 50 years ago isn't relevant. The norm of the hobby in 2014 is that each player supplies their own army. This is true of pretty much every game in the market, not just GW games. It has been that way for at least 20-30 years, and there is no sign that this trend is going to change in the foreseeable future. Like it or not, the old days are gone.

And that the majority of game play that goes on is not publicly at stores, clubs or conventions, but at home, among friends.

Evidence for this? Specifically in the miniature wargame market, not gaming in general?

Furthermore it's also a departure from the norm for games in general, which tend to not expect people to rely on others to have a functional set of gaming pieces.

You're making the mistake of ignoring the difference between genres of games. Obviously board games work that way, but other genres don't. CCGs/LCGs follow the same "bring your own deck" model as miniatures games, RPGs make a default assumption that each player has their own stuff (and even when books are shared it's expected that you bring your own character), and obviously miniatures default to "bring your own army". And in all of these cases "bring your own stuff" is a long-term trend that is pretty much universal across all products in the genre, not just a weird temporary thing that everyone expects to end soon.

Maybe GW's numbers show them the same thing?

I doubt it. If GW's own numbers show that most customers paint and play at home then they'd be closing their retail stores as fast as possible. Keeping a marginally-profitable retail division around only makes sense if you assume that most customers are interested in the "store community" experience.

I am sorry I have to agree with Frozen here, in fact that is how you can get many people interested in a new game as I have witnessed from my own club and eventually those who have played the game usually go and pick up their own forces as well. This is a perfectly viable way too start a game, I would in the long run however encourage the regular gamers to purchase their own force, but the biggest thing is as long as the game is being played and is represented in the gaming club it will be in view of all who go in and out of the club and generates a much higher chance of more gamers picking up the game. Just like Demoing except it happens every week or so. I see what you are saying about the long term you want your fellow gamers to buy , build and bring their own forces in which I agree, but to make sure your invested game gains attention and grows to the level were you know you will be able to get a game of it, bringing your own two small forces to play is an excellent way to do it.

We see many companies encouraging this approach through PP's privateer system for example is a very similar set up encouraged by the company to help its game grow. The large army forces games do make this approach very expensive and time consuming, however 28mm wargaming really should not be played at such a scale, that style of game should be done with a smaller scale of miniatures which leads to a reduced cost of player investment so they can then do the same thing. This is why right now Skirmish games are out pacing the few large scale 28mm games out their. They can be demoed, easy to set up and show a game to a new player in no time. These large scale games cannot have such a set up due to time and money investment that the average gamer cannot do such a set up.

This Is why it is brilliant to produce a skirmish game as you will be able to have such events and players form your communities were with GW and other scaled games your going to have a much harder time in growing and keeping your current market place as its just plainly a lot harder to Demo your game due to time restraints alone. Other companies could possibly do this still but GW and the way their poor excuse for a game system is any new player will not understand how to play a game to any level within one Demo. So I will leave it at that. Also frozen wastes for your earlier post about my post I agree with you 100% their I understand your reasoning and agree with it , its a much better way for the market to grow!.

 frozenwastes wrote:
No, that's a false dichotomy. How many pence is a Perry or a Victrix plastic infantry model? And those are from companies that have to out source their tooling and injection moulding. A company that already owns their tooling and injection moulding infrastructure could price even more competitively (if they so desired). The technology is all about driving down the margin cost of the next sprue produced. WGF has also made this work in the non-historical line. They've said that their zombies and survivors have outsold all other produces they've made combined. At 30 figures for $22. People get both the survivors and the zombies and get a lot of them. Zombies are fun in hordes, after all.

Two things:

1) You're assuming that all models will work like generic things like zombies and survivors. Zombies are like historical miniatures, they have no IP protection and they're usually interchangeable, so competition can drive prices down. But most people who want non-historical miniatures are interested in more than just generic stuff, and that probably means higher prices.

2) Money isn't the only cost. Building and painting those models still takes a lot of time. For example, even though I'm only buying expensive OOP stuff I'm still accumulating models faster than I'm finishing them and adding them to my army. It has taken me years to get my IG up to the 1500-2000 point level at anything close to WYSIWYG, there's no way I'd ever be able to build a second army even if the models were free.

Furthermore, companies have been doing a great job marketing products meant to speed up painting. And with youtube and various blogs and communities, there has never been an easier time to learn how to paint fast.

Which is only relevant if you're satisfied with "spray color primer, minimal detail, dump in a bucket of wash". If you want to paint your stuff at a higher standard there's nothing you can do about the fact that it is going to take a lot of time.

When I talk about GW's customer base being segmented, I usually also talk about them being ignorant. This time I forgot. My bad.

But these are two separate issues. Segmentation in the market doesn't necessarily mean ignorance. You can have customers that are only interested in GW games who are still aware of things like buying knives/drill bits/etc elsewhere, and you can have non-gamer family walk into an independent store full of non-GW products and say "just give me what my kid needs to be happy". And in the case of GW's overpriced tools the ignorance factor is much more important than their ability to create their own niche in the market.

There is no "should".

But you presented a separation between rules and models as a good thing, implying that, at least in your mind, there is such a thing as "should".

Sci-fi and fantasy is often just historical stuff with chrome added on. An infantry dude with a gun is still an infantry dude with a gun.

But that "chrome" is very important for WYSIWYG purposes

I'm sure you can think of a third option that's better than those two if you try.

Ok, let's see you prove it. Explain exactly how you would design a scifi tank model without referring to any rules. Please be sure to explain things like how you choose which guns it will be armed with, where they will be placed on the model, and what fire arcs they will have. I bet that whatever answer you give is going to be one of my two options.

In DIY miniature gaming, you represent the story the miniature tells you when you look at it.

So what about a model tells you whether its gun should be STR 6 or STR 7 (in 40k terms), and how many points the model should cost as a result of that choice?

As you said though, not an approach for people who aren't willing to put in the time/work/thought to make it work.

Sorry, but "write your own rules" is not an option. I don't want a game where I have to invent rules for all the units based on whatever models I decide to use, and then spend tons of time playtesting them to get everything balanced before I can enjoy the game. If I'm going to pay money for rules I expect them to be a finished product.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 frozenwastes wrote:
Take GW's revenue, adjust it by sales channel as outlined in their last report, take the number of retail locations they run and then find out how many people are showing up to play their on a given saturday. They all have face book pages, so you can ask about turn out. Then divide the revenue and see just how small of a portion the active store gamers really represent.

Except that's not an answer because it doesn't account for things like parents buying a space marine starter box for their kid and then throwing the unbuilt models in the trash 10-15 years later when the kid moves out and the parent wants their bedroom for an office. That sale would count as a "person who buys at GW and plays at home" even though they never played the game. Similarly, it doesn't account at all for people who buy from the local store and play their games in a private club, which is just a slight location change for the "bring your own army, play pickup games" model.

Give how much effort GW is putting into turning their stores from hobby centres into glorified sales kiosks, I could only laugh. And how rapidly they will close a store or replace the employee if they don't hit their target numbers.

Except that's not what GW is doing. Remember that GW has closed all of their big mall stores and replaced them with stores in the middle of nowhere. That only makes sense if you assume that your primary target market is people who already know about your product and want a place to play their games in addition to buying stuff. If you assume that most of your target market doesn't play in the store then you want to get rid of the gaming space and put the store in a high-traffic mall where customers will actually find it. Or you give up on attracting new customers at your retail store and move all of your stuff online and into independent stores.

(And yes, the way GW is cutting store quality is stupid, but it's a sign of trying to run a "play your games" store at the absolute lowest possible cost.)

 Peregrine wrote:

And that the majority of game play that goes on is not publicly at stores, clubs or conventions, but at home, among friends.

Evidence for this? Specifically in the miniature wargame market, not gaming in general?

GAMA, WotC, Wargames Illustrated, Soldiers & Strategy and others have found as much through their own research in gaming and miniatures in general.

It is also an observable fact. If you look at the costs needed to run a game store, divide that by the number of people who play at game stores...the amount each one of those people would need to spend far outstrips even the most generous hobby budget. You can verify it anecdotally by asking store owners as well regarding how much of their customer base plays in house versus those who pop in for one thing or another and don't come back for a month or more.

Now add in all those who don't even bother with the stores and shop online only. Add all those who don't have access to a local game store (large areas of the US have no game store, or no game store with in house gaming facilities - including significant population centers).

People who game in stores is tiny fraction of the whole market. Not even touching mass market gaming (which is almost entirely done at home - things like the collectible games), even just looking at GW's market share, you can conclude that most gaming happens outside of stores. Roughly $57 million sold in North America last year. Approximately 850 hobby stores that carry GW products (total, including GW and independents). Average spending per person per year $450 (based on numerous surveys) - you have an average 150 customers per store buying GW products (granted, they won't all be GW products...sloppy number crunching to illustrate). Average game capacity per store with in store gaming - two tables (GAMA data). Average wait to play per game night for 150 customers to play on 2 tables at 2 hours per game?

I'd have to dig it out to get the specifics, but most the surveys correlate to roughly 5-10% being regular in store gamers (once a month or more) while another 10-15% will show up for special occasions (tournaments, contests, in-laws visiting...). The remaining 75-85% game in stores less than once a year or never. The ones who actually game in store have been shown to spend less than those who do not - often due to their socioeconomic position (in store gamers tend to be younger).

Peregrine wrote:1) You're assuming that all models will work like generic things like zombies and survivors.

No, I'm saying that there are, right now, examples in the market place that show that people can get large collections of figures for low amounts of money if they want to. And sci-fi and fantasy non-generic offerings don't have different manufacturing and distribution costs just because no one else can make them. GW charges more because they want better margins and the cost savings of lower volumes. Adjusted for inflation, the LOTR plastic infantry have gone up 230% in price from when they were originally released. No one else could make them when they were less than half their current price, yet GW sold them quite cheaply.

2) Money isn't the only cost. Building and painting those models still takes a lot of time. For example, even though I'm only buying expensive OOP stuff I'm still accumulating models faster than I'm finishing them and adding them to my army. It has taken me years to get my IG up to the 1500-2000 point level at anything close to WYSIWYG, there's no way I'd ever be able to build a second army even if the models were free.

So because you paint a certain rate, that means no one right now is happily buying loads of miniatures, painting them up and getting them on the table. It would be totally off topic for me to trot out picture after picture of huge (usually historical) games with way more miniatures than your IG army has, but I could do it. You asserted that building more than one army isn't a viable approach, apparently from a personal perspective as well as an industry one. And yet... the huge armies exist that would take up way, way more time to paint and assemble than 2 of your IG armies.


EDIT: Turns out I couldn't resist:

Anyone who can get that done, can get two 2000 point armies done. And I don't know how often I see points totals in people's signatures in the multiple thousands. There seems to be enough people buying and painting miniatures that large collections bigger than two armies aren't that rare.

And again: A person making two armies and another person deciding to make their own are not mutually exclusive! It's in GW's best interest if they can get people to demo their games for their friends who are not yet wargamers. It's in any manufacturer's best interests to have their customers do that for their product.

Which is only relevant if you're satisfied with "spray color primer, minimal detail, dump in a bucket of wash". If you want to paint your stuff at a higher standard there's nothing you can do about the fact that it is going to take a lot of time.

The reality is that enough people do want to paint quickly that products have been brought to market to accommodate them. It's okay if they are not the kind of product you are interested in. I know a lot of people are very happy with some of GW's products aimed at this kind of process.

Ok, let's see you prove it. Explain exactly how you would design a scifi tank model without referring to any rules. Please be sure to explain things like how you choose which guns it will be armed with, where they will be placed on the model, and what fire arcs they will have. I bet that whatever answer you give is going to be one of my two options.

Entirely based off of aesthetics, thinking about what the implications of the design choices would be if it experienced actual combat and the realities of sculpting, tooling and mass producing the end model. Those last concerns are way more important considerations that game stats when it comes to product development. I don't think I would think about rules at all when designing the model. I'd want the model to stand on its own merits.

In DIY miniature gaming, you represent the story the miniature tells you when you look at it.

So what about a model tells you whether its gun should be STR 6 or STR 7 (in 40k terms), and how many points the model should cost as a result of that choice?

How indeed. I see the DIY approach is too alien for you to even understand it. Do you want to hear something strange? The popular rules sets by Warlord Games like Hail Caesar and Black Powder... don't have points values! What?! How can they do that? LOL

Sorry, but "write your own rules" is not an option. I don't want a game where I have to invent rules for all the units based on whatever models I decide to use, and then spend tons of time playtesting them to get everything balanced before I can enjoy the game. If I'm going to pay money for rules I expect them to be a finished product.

The context for my advocacy of separating rules and miniatures was to allow those who are satisfied with one but not the other to still find a gaming solution that works for them. Your particular interests, again, are irrelevant to that situation. And unfortunately to everyone else, I can't think of a way to tie it into the topic of the thread. Maybe something about how GW seems to be going after a target audience that doesn't care about rules as much as we might? Sure. I think that works. I just think they could have embraced the casual free-wheeling approach without fragmenting the rules expectations to sell more models.

.

 Peregrine wrote:
So if you want to keep miniatures and rules separate you have two choices:

1) Generic models that can fit most rules if you try hard enough, but never do anything ambitious. No vehicles, no fancy units (bikes, crisis suits, etc), just a ton of different 10-man infantry squads with laser rifles.

or

2) Generic rules that can accommodate any models. For example, infantry squads don't have different gun types, you just say "10-man squad with rifles" so that no matter what your models look like there's no WYSIWYG issue.

Actually - not so much. There are several systems available which make use of any figure and can equip them pretty much as you see fit. My go to rules set for that sort of thing is Defiance: Vital Ground from Majestic Twelve. They have rules covering all your vehicles, critters, infantry and in the last expansion include steampunk based mechs with wizards who cast spells through them...

Building a list takes a bit more time the first go around for each army - but the math behind the list building is solid enough that you can be pretty certain lists created by two different people will be balanced against each other for the same point value. After you work the math the first time though, you can do new lists for different point values in very short order to play smaller or larger games.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
People who game in stores is tiny fraction of the whole market. Not even touching mass market gaming (which is almost entirely done at home - things like the collectible games), even just looking at GW's market share, you can conclude that most gaming happens outside of stores. Roughly $57 million sold in North America last year. Approximately 850 hobby stores that carry GW products (total, including GW and independents). Average spending per person per year $450 (based on numerous surveys) - you have an average 150 customers per store buying GW products (granted, they won't all be GW products...sloppy number crunching to illustrate). Average game capacity per store with in store gaming - two tables (GAMA data). Average wait to play per game night for 150 customers to play on 2 tables at 2 hours per game?

LOL!

I'd have to dig it out to get the specifics, but most the surveys correlate to roughly 5-10% being regular in store gamers (once a month or more) while another 10-15% will show up for special occasions (tournaments, contests, in-laws visiting...). The remaining 75-85% game in stores less than once a year or never. The ones who actually game in store have been shown to spend less than those who do not - often due to their socioeconomic position (in store gamers tend to be younger).

So maybe GW's transition to a sales focused approach for their stores isn't such a bad thing to do. Very interesting stuff.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
People who game in stores is tiny fraction of the whole market. Not even touching mass market gaming (which is almost entirely done at home - things like the collectible games), even just looking at GW's market share, you can conclude that most gaming happens outside of stores. Roughly $57 million sold in North America last year. Approximately 850 hobby stores that carry GW products (total, including GW and independents). Average spending per person per year $450 (based on numerous surveys) - you have an average 150 customers per store buying GW products (granted, they won't all be GW products...sloppy number crunching to illustrate). Average game capacity per store with in store gaming - two tables (GAMA data). Average wait to play per game night for 150 customers to play on 2 tables at 2 hours per game?

LOL!

I'd have to dig it out to get the specifics, but most the surveys correlate to roughly 5-10% being regular in store gamers (once a month or more) while another 10-15% will show up for special occasions (tournaments, contests, in-laws visiting...). The remaining 75-85% game in stores less than once a year or never. The ones who actually game in store have been shown to spend less than those who do not - often due to their socioeconomic position (in store gamers tend to be younger).

So maybe GW's transition to a sales focused approach for their stores isn't such a bad thing to do. Very interesting stuff.

Most the information I have seen (sporadic from different sources) goes back to the mid-1980s and the trends haven't really changed much in the US. The mistake that they made was that they tried to export a European business model to the rest of the world. In the UK and mainland Europe, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, houses were significantly smaller and didn't really have the room to set up gaming tables outside of taking over a dining table. The US, Canada and Australia generally had space - extra bedrooms, basements, sometimes even purpose built rec rooms. We also generally had further to go to get to fewer stores, a lack of public transportation for hooligans to take before they learn to drive and all the other aspects which made GW stores a viable option.

If you examine the GW stores which actually manage to survive more than one lease term in the US - going back to the beginning - the majority tend to be in high population density urban areas. They end up surviving less due to the population density and more due to the necessity of an outside game facility due to apartment living.

 frozenwastes wrote:

There is probably a game size, a bit larger than Warmachine and a bit smaller than 40k that can be both a high price premium product and sell at good volumes and have a lower barrier to entry. During the 90s when GW grew from a British importer of D&D into an international retailer of their own miniatures, most of their games were like that. Bigger than Warmachine, smaller than current 40k/Fantasy.

I agree. 20-40 infantry sized models (depending on faction), plus 2-5 40mm base sized models, plus 1 vehicle sized model would make for an easily transportable game with a lower barrier to entry (at least in cost).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Most the information I have seen (sporadic from different sources) goes back to the mid-1980s and the trends haven't really changed much in the US. The mistake that they made was that they tried to export a European business model to the rest of the world. In the UK and mainland Europe, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, houses were significantly smaller and didn't really have the room to set up gaming tables outside of taking over a dining table. The US, Canada and Australia generally had space - extra bedrooms, basements, sometimes even purpose built rec rooms. We also generally had further to go to get to fewer stores, a lack of public transportation for hooligans to take before they learn to drive and all the other aspects which made GW stores a viable option.

You should check out the city of Vancouver. Downtown, condominiums are as small as 200 sq ft now. The price? Literally, the cheapest condo for sale downtown is a quarter million dollars. The cheapest single-family detached dwelling in the city that isn't floating on water and where you actually own the land is (way) over a million dollars, and they are tear downs. And rent is proportionately expensive.

My wife actually jokes that my love of the hobby costs us $2,000 a month, because that's what we could rent my 1500sq ft man-cave gaming basement for LOL.

frozenwastes wrote:

2) Money isn't the only cost. Building and painting those models still takes a lot of time. For example, even though I'm only buying expensive OOP stuff I'm still accumulating models faster than I'm finishing them and adding them to my army. It has taken me years to get my IG up to the 1500-2000 point level at anything close to WYSIWYG, there's no way I'd ever be able to build a second army even if the models were free.

So because you paint a certain rate, that means no one right now is happily buying loads of miniatures, painting them up and getting them on the table. It would be totally off topic for me to trot out picture after picture of huge (usually historical) games with way more miniatures than your IG army has, but I could do it. You asserted that building more than one army isn't a viable approach, apparently from a personal perspective as well as an industry one. And yet... the huge armies exist that would take up way, way more time to paint and assemble than 2 of your IG armies.

Actually, since 1988 or so, I have collected many playable armies -- Imperial Guard, Grey Knights, and Eldar were all very complete armies in my first decade of gaming. I did Orks next and Tyranids next, and Dark Angels after that. At several points in time, various armies were refreshed back to "modern" playable lists. I'm currently working on Dark Eldar and Blood Angels, and will probably have 1,850 points playable / 2,500 points by the end of the year (2015, I mean, not 2014 haha). I already have all the models, except one stormraven -- I "just" need to build and paint them. I even have a couple of Finecast Grotesques that seem OOP now

It was never about a FoTM army (I admit I am building an Angel's Fury, but mostly because it just "feels" like the right way for BA to make an entrance, rather than it being potentially game-wise awesome) -- it was always about cool models.

Anyone who can get that done, can get two 2000 point armies done. And I don't know how often I see points totals in people's signatures in the multiple thousands. There seems to be enough people buying and painting miniatures that large collections bigger than two armies aren't that rare.

And again: A person making two armies and another person deciding to make their own are not mutually exclusive! It's in GW's best interest if they can get people to demo their games for their friends who are not yet wargamers. It's in any manufacturer's best interests to have their customers do that for their product.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. It really isn't even that hard, if you have spare time, and you enjoy the hobby. It's just miserable if you can't afford it, don't like the modelling end of it, and are in a rush to have playable units (in this case, 40k is SO not the right hobby...).

For all the griping about hobby cost, 40k as a hobby is *much* cheaper than many forms of entertainment. It isn't hard to spend $2,000 on a pair of hockey, football, or concert tickets if you want to. Many sports cost way, way more than hobby. Ever bought a nice golf club? How about a set? Green fees?

Sorry, but "write your own rules" is not an option. I don't want a game where I have to invent rules for all the units based on whatever models I decide to use, and then spend tons of time playtesting them to get everything balanced before I can enjoy the game. If I'm going to pay money for rules I expect them to be a finished product.

The context for my advocacy of separating rules and miniatures was to allow those who are satisfied with one but not the other to still find a gaming solution that works for them. Your particular interests, again, are irrelevant to that situation. And unfortunately to everyone else, I can't think of a way to tie it into the topic of the thread. Maybe something about how GW seems to be going after a target audience that doesn't care about rules as much as we might? Sure. I think that works. I just think they could have embraced the casual free-wheeling approach without fragmenting the rules expectations to sell more models.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

If you examine the GW stores which actually manage to survive more than one lease term in the US - going back to the beginning - the majority tend to be in high population density urban areas. They end up surviving less due to the population density and more due to the necessity of an outside game facility due to apartment living.

The closest GW to me has done alright since the switch to a single employee. The guy is a master salesman and I'm sure when he gets done with GW and embraces a true professional sales position, he'll become quite well off. The store is in an affluent area with lots of 2000+ square foot single family homes, but small yards. Almost all of his revenue comes from new 14-20 year olds who see the store when they go past it to a nearby mall and wonder what it is. If all of GW's stores could have this sort of combination of location and staff, GW would be very healthy.

My worry for GW going forward is that they just got rid of their middle management. From what I understand there's one rep for North America who answers directly to the board and all the store managers answer to him. So is there someone in North America analyzing income demographics, urban density and traffic patterns to find the best locations? I know they outsourced recruiting, but that's not really any guarantee they'll get the kind of sales people they need.

Talys wrote:
My wife actually jokes that my love of the hobby costs us $2,000 a month, because that's what we could rent my 1500sq ft man-cave gaming basement for LOL.

That's a sizable space for gaming. It's awesome that you don't have to rent it out, and that if you ever need to you can. Are the Trumpeter club meetings at Bonsor near Metrotown still happening?

Talys wrote:It was never about a FoTM army (I admit I am building an Angel's Fury, but mostly because it just "feels" like the right way for BA to make an entrance, rather than it being potentially game-wise awesome) -- it was always about cool models.

I'm the same way. Tyranids hit that Alien sweet spot from my childhood. And genestealer cults captured my imagination enough that they've appeared as the bad guys in a few different fantasy and sci-fi RPGs that I've run over the years.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. It really isn't even that hard, if you have spare time, and you enjoy the hobby. It's just miserable if you can't afford it, don't like the modelling end of it, and are in a rush to have playable units (in this case, 40k is SO not the right hobby...).

For all the griping about hobby cost, 40k as a hobby is *much* cheaper than many forms of entertainment. It isn't hard to spend $2,000 on a pair of hockey, football, or concert tickets if you want to. Many sports cost way, way more than hobby. Ever bought a nice golf club? How about a set? Green fees?

While I don't think it speaks well of GW to have to compare it to something like golf or off roading to make the cost seem reasonable, I largely agree with the sentiment that even 40k is doable. I think what hurts GW though is that their customers seem to be getting exhausted. Each new release puts a higher price tag on a kit when compared to previous ones and the natural supply and demand curves seem to be taking their effect with less people buying less (which does allow GW to save money on production, retail and distribution costs).

Meh. I've said it before, and I'll repeat it again. Tabletop wargaming is so much better entertainment as a social experience rather than "You and me, 1850 points, FIGHT!". There are so may better ways to do the latter (like StarCraft). In the context of a social experience where it's not two cavemen bashing each other with clubs, where the loser says, "not fair, your club was bigger", it should be easy for humans to agree that certain aspects of a game are fun, or not fun, and to make adjustments or concessions as necessary.

You'd think. I think the main reason people complain about GW's approach is that they are simply not the its target audience. Perhaps they feel that GW would be better off if their likes were catered rather than ignored. I think there is something to the case that the social gamers who make adjustments or concessions as necessary aren't in any way negatively impacted by rules that function well in "You and me, 1850 points, FIGHT!" mode.

Real game development costs money though. The amount of people on the credits for design and development for a set of Magic: The Gathering cards is pretty impressive. And that's not counting their entire "Advance design team" that does a lot of ground work months before the lead designer comes along and starts writing card text. GW is in money saving mode right now. They're simply not going to spend that kind of money when they can just ask their current team to play some games Friday afternoon and answer the question "was it fun?"

 frozenwastes wrote:
So because you paint a certain rate, that means no one right now is happily buying loads of miniatures, painting them up and getting them on the table. It would be totally off topic for me to trot out picture after picture of huge (usually historical) games with way more miniatures than your IG army has, but I could do it. You asserted that building more than one army isn't a viable approach, apparently from a personal perspective as well as an industry one. And yet... the huge armies exist that would take up way, way more time to paint and assemble than 2 of your IG armies.

I assume we're talking about what is viable for most people. There are people out there who can assemble 2 armies of 300 models each, for most people that's just not viable, which is why the BYO army system is appealing to a large slab of the population. In my entire gaming life the number of people who have actually bought, assembled AND painted armies of 100+ models are far outnumbered by the number of people who have started armies but never gotten them finished.

The BYO army system makes wargaming beyond skirmish levels more accessible... this is a good thing.

 frozenwastes wrote:
That's a sizable space for gaming. It's awesome that you don't have to rent it out, and that if you ever need to you can. Are the Trumpeter club meetings at Bonsor near Metrotown still happening?

I'm not sure. Many, many moons ago, I played at UBC, then hung out with the crowd at Imperial Hobbies in Richmond, and then eventually just played privately with friends. I've never been much of the Metrotown scene -- though I occasionally pop into the Highgate Games Workshop if I happen to be nearby.

About 2/3 of my basement is set aside for gaming. The rest is storage... including a collection of models that I must paint before I die. Which will necessitate me living to the age of the Emperor... or at least Dante

 frozenwastes wrote:

While I don't think it speaks well of GW to have to compare it to something like golf or off roading to make the cost seem reasonable, I largely agree with the sentiment that even 40k is doable. I think what hurts GW though is that their customers seem to be getting exhausted. Each new release puts a higher price tag on a kit when compared to previous ones and the natural supply and demand curves seem to be taking their effect with less people buying less (which does allow GW to save money on production, retail and distribution costs).

Yeah, I definitely know what you mean. "Exhaustion" is not a bad description of it, though I blame that mostly on a terrible set of 6th edition rules that they wanted to get rid of ASAP. The 2014 codices seem pretty well designed and balanced (with the exception of Grey Knights), so I've been a relatively happy customer from a product perspective. However, I don't like big heavy hardcover codices, and I don't like digital ones; and I feel ripped off by the hardcover small codices (not that I've bought any of those). If they sold small softcover codices like the mini rules for $35-$40 each, I think I and a few others could be happy in terms of price.

 frozenwastes wrote:

You'd think. I think the main reason people complain about GW's approach is that they are simply not the its target audience. Perhaps they feel that GW would be better off if their likes were catered rather than ignored. I think there is something to the case that the social gamers who make adjustments or concessions as necessary aren't in any way negatively impacted by rules that function well in "You and me, 1850 points, FIGHT!" mode.

Real game development costs money though. The amount of people on the credits for design and development for a set of Magic: The Gathering cards is pretty impressive. And that's not counting their entire "Advance design team" that does a lot of ground work months before the lead designer comes along and starts writing card text. GW is in money saving mode right now. They're simply not going to spend that kind of money when they can just ask their current team to play some games Friday afternoon and answer the question "was it fun?"

No argument there. I strongly feel that 40k rules could be much better, and that they could create a subset of 40k for the people who just want to show up and bash it out with 2 armies. It would be a good way to entice people to be sucked into the 40k universe.

Now, using MtG as a comparison, I fiercely played and collected that for a few years, but hit "Exhaustion" and finally sold it all. Funny thing: I found 1 box the other day with a playable deck that I missed giving the fella I sold all my cards to. Went to a local store, and the value of those cards was almost $1000!! I was pretty happy Though, if I had magically held onto either of my 2 alpha print black lotuses, I would have been much more happy, I suppose!

I actually found MtG a pretty easy hobby to walk away from. 40k always draws me back because the models are cool. I mean, I bought a box of BA assault terminators when they came out (and unlike the tac squad, they were crazy expensive CAD $70 before discounts). I need more terminator models like I need a root canal, but I just saw the new stormshields and my eyes glazed over. Purdddyyyyy....




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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I assume we're talking about what is viable for most people. There are people out there who can assemble 2 armies of 300 models each, for most people that's just not viable, which is why the BYO army system is appealing to a large slab of the population. In my entire gaming life the number of people who have actually bought, assembled AND painted armies of 100+ models are far outnumbered by the number of people who have started armies but never gotten them finished.

The BYO army system makes wargaming beyond skirmish levels more accessible... this is a good thing.

Sorry for my ignorance: what is a BYO army system? Do you mean a system where the models and rules can be used interchangeably between different systems?

Talys wrote:
Sorry for my ignorance: what is a BYO army system? Do you mean a system where the models and rules can be used interchangeably between different systems?

Sorry my post might have been off topic since the conversation has been moving on, it goes back to what we were talking about on the previous page, where you have a host that supplies both armies for a game vs someone bringing their own army to play against a person who also brought their own army.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Talys wrote:
Sorry for my ignorance: what is a BYO army system? Do you mean a system where the models and rules can be used interchangeably between different systems?

Sorry my post might have been off topic since the conversation has been moving on, it goes back to what we were talking about on the previous page, where you have a host that supplies both armies for a game vs someone bringing their own army to play against a person who also brought their own army.

Ahhh okay, I get it

In theory, I have no problem supplying both armies. In practice, I don't very often, because I spend too much time prepping and painting my miniatures and wince at the thought of them being mishandled.

In all-in-one games like Space Hulk, I keep 2 sets of miniatures -- one painted nicely, and one very quickly painted for playing (and I do mean *very*). Sometimes, I'll bring out my nice set to play my side with, but my buddies get to use basic paint job models. They can bring their own fancy miniatures if they want!!

AllSeeingSkink wrote:There are people out there who can assemble 2 armies of 300 models each, for most people that's just not viable, which is why the BYO army system is appealing to a large slab of the population. In my entire gaming life the number of people who have actually bought, assembled AND painted armies of 100+ models are far outnumbered by the number of people who have started armies but never gotten them finished.

I know GW believes their typical customer quits without ever really playing the games. Jervis said as much in 2009 at UK Games Day. He called the people who maybe play a handful of times ever but concentrate on the model side of things "craft hobbyists" and said they made up of almost two thirds of GW's customer base.

This whole sub-conversation sprang out of our conversation about getting into games without knowing where the opponents are going to come from. While some want a strict either-or dichotomy to hold absolutely sway, it was actually just about the subset of people who like a project enough to collect and paint all the needed miniatures. It's true that a lot of people start armies and never get them done, but those aren't really the people in question. You don't go to the trouble to paint both sides of a conflict and host games because you're the type of person who doesn't care enough to finish painting an army.

I also think we disagree about how many people there are out there who actually get things done. Maybe I'm spending too much time around historical players, but they seem to get things done. And the terrain is often even more time consuming than the huge armies.



I think there are enough dedicated hobbyists out there to support a market where people can collect and paint everything needed for a game. And as I keep saying, there is nothing mutually exclusive about this. It's not some sort of either-or dichotomy or two absolutes you have to pick from. It's just an observation that shopping around your game to people who already have what they want probably isn't as effective as a more project oriented social event approach. It's how the industry was built in the first place. It would also probably work well for GW to spend a lot more time thinking about the social side of things and how their product is used and could be used instead of concentrating on the Games Workshop Hobby being the act of purchasing their miniatures as was stated in the CHS lawsuit.

The BYO army system makes wargaming beyond skirmish levels more accessible... this is a good thing.

Anything that makes miniature wargaming more accessible is a good thing. If you happen to like what people play locally and the community isn't too fragmented, then it can work. You've seen what it's like first hand when it doesn't though. I'm not sure how a game is more accessible if you can't get games of it in. I know what I'm saying sounds counter intuitive-- especially the idea that the existing player base of other games might not be the most fruitful recruiting ground compared to those not in the hobby at all-- but it's something to try if your current approach hasn't been giving you the results you are looking for.

Talys wrote:Yeah, I definitely know what you mean. "Exhaustion" is not a bad description of it, though I blame that mostly on a terrible set of 6th edition rules that they wanted to get rid of ASAP.

I know the two editions within 23 months of each other exhausted a lot of people locally though. Imagine if you only got into 40k 6 months or so before the end of 6th edition and bam! you're asked to repurchase the rules. I think when people look back on it from the future, the sudden release of 7th edition is going to be what a lot of people site as the beginning of the end for their time with 40k. Many of them wouldn't have spent enough time with 6th edition to know if it was something that should have been gotten rid of ASAP or not. Call me cynical, but I think the real reason for 7th edition was the quick cash injection that a new edition release brings.

Talys wrote:
No argument there. I strongly feel that 40k rules could be much better, and that they could create a subset of 40k for the people who just want to show up and bash it out with 2 armies. It would be a good way to entice people to be sucked into the 40k universe.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe in the end it will be the completion of the alienation of the game focused customers. And GW can develop their retail operation of selling to people who are more about the models and keep a watch on their costs and stabilize their revenue and GW really can be the efficient cash machine Kirby touts it as in a way that's more sustainable than their current approach.

.

 frozenwastes wrote:

Spoiler:

Anyone who can get that done, can get two 2000 point armies done.

Sigh. THIS IS NOT AN AVERAGE PLAYER. Seriously, why do you keep posting these pictures as if they represent the amount of effort an average player is willing to invest? Obviously there are a small number of dedicated collectors who build huge armies like that, but they aren't common and I seriously doubt there are enough of them to support a viable product. The average player spends a lot less time and money on their models, and many players struggle to finish even a single 1500-2000 point army. This is fine when each player is only responsible for bringing their own stuff, but if you want those players to move to a "one player brings both armies" model then you have to reduce per-army model counts to compensate.

Entirely based off of aesthetics, thinking about what the implications of the design choices would be if it experienced actual combat and the realities of sculpting, tooling and mass producing the end model. Those last concerns are way more important considerations that game stats when it comes to product development. I don't think I would think about rules at all when designing the model. I'd want the model to stand on its own merits.

Congratulations, you just proved my point by creating a model that can only be used if the rules are generic enough to let any random tank model fit the unit rules, regardless of what it looks like/what guns it has/etc. What were you saying about creating false dilemmas?

I see the DIY approach is too alien for you to even understand it.

No, I understand the "DIY approach", also known as "a publisher selling you half a game and letting you do all the work of finishing it". I just think it's a good way to commit financial suicide. It might work for a handful of obsessive historical players with unlimited amounts of free time, but if it ever becomes the default in the non-historical community it could very easily destroy non-historical gaming. Think this is exaggerated a bit? Just look at how many customers GW keeps losing because they think "DIY" is a good way to publish a game.

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 frozenwastes wrote:
I don't know what the solution is.

The best solution is for GW to suffer a bad year, the shareholders to panic sell and crash the stock price, and WOTC to buy the company. Any situation that leaves GW's current management in control just means the continuing destruction of GW's games and possibly significant damage to the hobby as a whole.

 frozenwastes wrote:

I know the two editions within 23 months of each other exhausted a lot of people locally though. Imagine if you only got into 40k 6 months or so before the end of 6th edition and bam! you're asked to repurchase the rules. I think when people look back on it from the future, the sudden release of 7th edition is going to be what a lot of people site as the beginning of the end for their time with 40k. Many of them wouldn't have spent enough time with 6th edition to know if it was something that should have been gotten rid of ASAP.

I hear you. Even at the maximum 23 months, it's a short time frame for new rules. It's not only the cost -- there's also the changes a new edition brings, and people adjust better to codex changes (like new Blood Angels) than to sweeping new changes that requires they change the way they play.

 frozenwastes wrote:

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe in the end it will be the completion of the alienation of the game focused customers. And GW can develop their retail operation of selling to people who are more about the models and keep a watch on their costs and stabilize their revenue and GW really can be the efficient cash machine Kirby touts it as in a way that's more sustainable than their current approach.

I hope that's not the case. I always thought of Forge World as that, but I guess I'm not a big enough fan, because I can't bring myself to pay the import fees and such on top of the higher cost of the FW models. If they sold them at my FLGS, that would be a different thing.

Frankly, in the North American market, at least, I wish they'd get rid of the retail thing and focus on relationships with local stores. I much prefer to buy from local stores because the price is better, but also because GW stores just don't carry all the other cool hobby stuff made by other companies (even exclusive of models). Although my GW store might stock 20x the GW models, it has less than 0.1% of the hobby supplies sold at my favorite FLGS. I don't really just want stuff made and sold by gaming companies; I like products by independent modelling supply companies like Woodland Scenics and Vallejo, and products that aren't limited to hobby, like airbrushes or a fifty kinds of sandpaper, a hundred different files, or a wall full of paintbrushes and mediums. It isn't even needing it -- I get a kick out of just browsing pegboards and shelves crammed with stuff ten feet high, looking for that one neat product that I never thought of using, and trying it out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

Spoiler:

Anyone who can get that done, can get two 2000 point armies done.

Sigh. THIS IS NOT AN AVERAGE PLAYER. Seriously, why do you keep posting these pictures as if they represent the amount of effort an average player is willing to invest? Obviously there are a small number of dedicated collectors who build huge armies like that, but they aren't common and I seriously doubt there are enough of them to support a viable product. The average player spends a lot less time and money on their models, and many players struggle to finish even a single 1500-2000 point army. This is fine when each player is only responsible for bringing their own stuff, but if you want those players to move to a "one player brings both armies" model then you have to reduce per-army model counts to compensate.

Although that's not an average player, it's not really out of the ballpark crazy, either. There are many people with at least that size of collections, though a lot of them might not have them painted as well.

I think that Frozenwastes said it pretty well when he said: "I think the main reason people complain about GW's approach is that they are simply not the its target audience."

If you don't enjoy the hobby enough to finish a 1500 point army, 40k is not the game for you. Finito. There is no way around it. You will hate it. There is no possible way to love the 40k tabletop wargame if you don't love building and painting scifi models, because the whole hobby revolves around building and painting a lot of models.

If there aren't enough people who enjoy the hobby of building and painting scifi models, then 40k will die.

 Peregrine wrote:

Congratulations, you just proved my point by creating a model that can only be used if the rules are generic enough to let any random tank model fit the unit rules, regardless of what it looks like/what guns it has/etc. What were you saying about creating false dilemmas?

If your opponent will let you proxy, go for it. I think some proxying is pretty reasonable. However, the problem in the context of a game like 40k is, if you point to a Transformer toy and say, "This is an Imperial Knight", point to a Tonka and say, "This is a Predator", and point to thirty civil war models and say, "These are Imperial Guard, those are scions, that's a terminator squad" -- how will your opponent remember that, and how will they know what weapons they have equipped?

 Peregrine wrote:

The best solution is for GW to suffer a bad year, the shareholders to panic sell and crash the stock price, and WOTC to buy the company. Any situation that leaves GW's current management in control just means the continuing destruction of GW's games and possibly significant damage to the hobby as a whole.

I actually am not totally opposed to Frozenwastes' other solution: totally alienate the gamer crowd for 40k, and simply focus on model and fluff releases for the modelling + gaming crowd. It would make me sad to see them "abandon" the quest to make a better game, but as long as the model prices remain at their relative levels and quality to other companies' scifi models and prices, they'll probably keep getting my business. I don't care if the game is ever perfectly fixed, as I find it quite playable, and I wouldn't mind a slower rules release cadence + faster models release cadence.

I would rather see games set in the 40k universe like Space Hulk for the gaming crowd. You get everything you need in a box, it's a good game, well balanced, easy to play pickup and a good value (even for models). I also like how the IP is used for computer games and such, though they need to partner with better developers who will write a standout game.

By the way, the shareholders of corporations are actually relatively powerless. The board of directors wield all of the power. Although technically shareholders elect the board, the practical reality is that in a public company, the largest shareholders, who also happen tend to have a history control who will be on the board. Sometimes, as a part of getting financing, a company might surrender 1 board seat, which is a pretty major concession.

GW is a very long ways from insolvency and a forced acquisition, because its fundamentals are pretty good, despite gamer doom and gloom. It has both physical and intellectual property assets that aren't going to devalue, it has significant cash reserves, it isn't leveraged, it's profitable, and it has a worldwide distribution infrastructure. In addition, its overheads are not high, and quite controllable. From a management perspective, the company appears to speak with one voice -- there are no significant shareholders or board members who dissent from the company's vision.

Peregrine wrote:Sigh. THIS IS NOT AN AVERAGE PLAYER. Seriously, why do you keep posting these pictures as if they represent the amount of effort an average player is willing to invest?

This whole conversation is about an approach that can be used by people who like a game so much that they'd consider getting two armies together, making all the terrain, play aids, dice, etc., and hosting the game. You don't need this level of dedication in the average player. Just enough. Social activities thrive because key individuals provide momentum and get things done. And again, it's not mutually exclusive with the people who just want to collect one army.

Obviously there are a small number of dedicated collectors who build huge armies like that, but they aren't common and I seriously doubt there are enough of them to support a viable product.

I think there are enough of them, you disagree. We're going in circles here.

Congratulations, you just proved my point by creating a model that can only be used if the rules are generic enough to let any random tank model fit the unit rules, regardless of what it looks like/what guns it has/etc.

Here's what you are missing: It's not "regardless of what it looks like/what guns it has/etc." but because of what it looks like/what guns it has/etc.,. The systems that allow for a wide variety of models from multiple manufacturers to work don't approach it by being overly general, but by being necessarily specific.

The best solution is for GW to suffer a bad year, the shareholders to panic sell and crash the stock price, and WOTC to buy the company. Any situation that leaves GW's current management in control just means the continuing destruction of GW's games and possibly significant damage to the hobby as a whole.

Sorry, but Hasbro only buys success. They're not a value investment firm who hunts for bargains and struggling companies to turn them around. This idea of WotC buying GW is a total pipe dream. It's not how Hasbro does mergers and acquisitions. All of Hasbro's mergers and acquisitions are a matter of public record and you can see the types of companies they buy.

I think leaving the current management in control is going to be largely beneficial to the hobby as a whole as GW is slowly giving away market share in an orderly fashion. Local stores that see their GW sales drop can slowly transition to other revenue sources. GW's constant higher prices makes the margins possible for more and more smaller players who don't have access to things like mass production in plastic. I think GW will find a stabilization point. They've already demonstrated that they are willing to give up revenue and volume in order to have better margins, so there's really no reason why they can't continue their shift towards direct sales to a smaller number of people at a higher price and find the right combination of staff and locations to make their retail operation work.

I can hear your frustration though. You sound like someone who is let down by part of a complete package approach, but can't admit that you can solve your own problem because of some principled stance "that it's not your job."

 frozenwastes wrote:
Local stores that see their GW sales drop can slowly transition to other revenue sources. GW's constant higher prices makes the margins possible for more and more smaller players who don't have access to things like mass production in plastic. I think GW will find a stabilization point. They've already demonstrated that they are willing to give up revenue and volume in order to have better margins, so there's really no reason why they can't continue their shift towards direct sales to a smaller number of people at a higher price and find the right combination of staff and locations to make their retail operation work.

Ask most FLGS, though, and you'll still find that their two big moneymakers are Games Workshop and Magic the Gathering. WMH is a distant third for revenue, and you can easily see this by product prominence.

In the Vancouver area, I think there's only 1 FLGS that doesn't sell GW and place it very prominently -- and that shop is almost all MtG (and other TCGs), and has a token amount of Privateer Press and some other stuff (like X-Wing) that is so incomplete as to be unplayable using only the models for sale.

Talys wrote:Frankly, in the North American market, at least, I wish they'd get rid of the retail thing and focus on relationships with local stores.

I think they should go hat-in-hand to all the sales channels they've spurned over the years and sell as much of their product as possible through as many channels as possible. And that even a small portion of their dividend money should be reinvested in a department responsible for returning them to growth by developing products appropriate for the wider market. That instead of ceding market share and trying to segment their customer base, they should compete in the open market through hobby and toy distribution and go in guns blazing, leveraging their plastic model kit infrastructure.

I don't really just want stuff made and sold by gaming companies; I like products by independent modelling supply companies like Woodland Scenics and Vallejo, and products that aren't limited to hobby, like airbrushes or a fifty kinds of sandpaper, a hundred different files, or a wall full of paintbrushes and mediums. It isn't even needing it -- I get a kick out of just browsing pegboards and shelves crammed with stuff ten feet high, looking for that one neat product that I never thought of using, and trying it out.

I got my first Airbrush from Imperial Hobbies in Richmond. And some sanding films that have become a mainstay of my model prep work. I know what you mean about browsing a well stocked hobby store.

Although that's not an average player, it's not really out of the ballpark crazy, either. There are many people with at least that size of collections, though a lot of them might not have them painted as well.

...

If you don't enjoy the hobby enough to finish a 1500 point army, 40k is not the game for you. Finito. There is no way around it. You will hate it. There is no possible way to love the 40k tabletop wargame if you don't love building and painting scifi models, because the whole hobby revolves around building and painting a lot of models.

I think this is really well said. And regardless of whether a given individual makes one army or two, the more dedicated people who are willing to put in the effort, the better the local community will be.

I actually am not totally opposed to Frozenwastes' other solution: totally alienate the gamer crowd for 40k, and simply focus on model and fluff releases for the modelling + gaming crowd. It would make me sad to see them "abandon" the quest to make a better game, but as long as the model prices remain at their relative levels and quality to other companies' scifi models and prices, they'll probably keep getting my business. I don't care if the game is ever perfectly fixed, as I find it quite playable, and I wouldn't mind a slower rules release cadence + faster models release cadence.

After GW hit the end of the LOTR boom, they switched the goal of their company. It used to be to get their product in the hands of as many people as possible and be a growth company. After the restructuring following the LOTR bubble bursting, they decided that they would be about lower volumes at higher prices with well protected margins that focus on what they believe their niche is: the hobbyist/collector. Being smart, they didn't fire the portion of their customer base that was in it for the game, but simply concentrated on what they wanted to. As people didn't get a clear "you're fired as a customer" notice from GW, they still act like the GW of 2014 is the GW of 2004 (or even the GW of 1994 or 1984) and are wondering why things aren't the way they would like.

 frozenwastes wrote:
This whole conversation is about an approach that can be used by people who like a game so much that they'd consider getting two armies together, making all the terrain, play aids, dice, etc., and hosting the game. You don't need this level of dedication in the average player. Just enough. Social activities thrive because key individuals provide momentum and get things done. And again, it's not mutually exclusive with the people who just want to collect one army.

But I don't see why this is something worth talking about. There aren't enough people like that with large enough budgets (both time and money) to accommodate a 40k-scale game that such a game is a viable product without the "bring your own army" model. Which goes back to my original point, that if the industry moves away from "bring your own army" the result will be less diversity as larger-scale games fail.

Here's what you are missing: It's not "regardless of what it looks like/what guns it has/etc." but because of what it looks like/what guns it has/etc.,. The systems that allow for a wide variety of models from multiple manufacturers to work don't approach it by being overly general, but by being necessarily specific.

If you're very specific then you end up with things like "hull-mounted heavy bolter", and if your tank model doesn't have a hull-mounted gun that can plausibly be a heavy bolter your tank model can't be used to represent that unit. The only way your tank model can be used with that kind of rules is if you're the one writing the rules and can make sure they match the models you produce.

(And yes, I'm discarding the "build your own vehicle rules" approach because it doesn't produce balanced results.)

Sorry, but Hasbro only buys success. They're not a value investment firm who hunts for bargains and struggling companies to turn them around. This idea of WotC buying GW is a total pipe dream. It's not how Hasbro does mergers and acquisitions. All of Hasbro's mergers and acquisitions are a matter of public record and you can see the types of companies they buy.

Then replace Hasbro/WOTC with a company of your choice, the end result is the same: GW's IP in the hands of a company that can make good use of it.

You sound like someone who is let down by part of a complete package approach, but can't admit that you can solve your own problem because of some principled stance "that it's not your job."

It's not about principles, it's about results. I don't have the game design skill and playtesting time to create my own rules, therefore any game that depends on me writing my own rules is a bad game for me.

 frozenwastes wrote:

The BYO army system makes wargaming beyond skirmish levels more accessible... this is a good thing.

Anything that makes miniature wargaming more accessible is a good thing. If you happen to like what people play locally and the community isn't too fragmented, then it can work. You've seen what it's like first hand when it doesn't though. I'm not sure how a game is more accessible if you can't get games of it in. I know what I'm saying sounds counter intuitive-- especially the idea that the existing player base of other games might not be the most fruitful recruiting ground compared to those not in the hobby at all-- but it's something to try if your current approach hasn't been giving you the results you are looking for..

The whole discussion goes back to your saying

 frozenwastes wrote:
I think it's best if we don't have any top dog.

and someone who replied...

underfire wargaming wrote:
This is what I have been saying for years now, this is the best thing that can happen to the market, its because we had one company dominate the market place that held back wargaming from being healthy and having diversity. The more open wargaming is to competition and diversity the more amazing products will be produced and the more settings and gener's will be introduced to wargaming. This is something I do not understand why so many of you are so are so concerned about, GWs demise will be far from harming the industry but a very good thing for wargaming as a whole.

What I've simply been trying to say is that having a top dog like GW can be good for the wargaming community because it reduces fragmentation and gives you a system where you can collect an army and reliably go play a game against someone.

Diversity only works when you have a huge community of wargamers so that you can always find someone to play against regardless of which game you play (which might be the case in some places, it's not my experience in any place I've lived) or when (as you pointed out) you have people willing to collect an entire game and not just 1 force in a game and then other people who are willing to play that game with them, which I feel is impractical for a lot of people with a lot of wargames.

So the reality as I see it, if GW dies or becomes less popular, part of the wargaming community might become more diverse but I think for the most part it will just fragment communities that currently rely on the popularity of 40k to get games in at all. Communities that didn't rely on the popularity of 40k will mostly remain unchanged. If you were playing historical games before you'll just continue to play historical games.

Talys wrote:
If you don't enjoy the hobby enough to finish a 1500 point army, 40k is not the game for you.

I do enjoy the game enough to finish a 1500 point army, as demonstrated by the fact that I'm slowly working on finishing mine despite mostly moving to X-Wing for gaming. The point is that I don't have the realistic ability to build a second 1500-2000 point army so that I can supply both halves of the game. And I certainly don't have the ability to build multiple 1500-2000 point armies so that I can supply both halves of the game and keep things interesting instead of just playing the same two armies over and over again. The game only works because the "bring your own army" approach means that I only have to supply my half of the game and my opponent provides theirs.

If there aren't enough people who enjoy the hobby of building and painting scifi models, then 40k will die.

It's not just about enjoying the hobby of building and painting scifi models, it's about enjoying it enough to buy and build multiple armies. That's a level of commitment way beyond what the game requires now.

However, the problem in the context of a game like 40k is, if you point to a Transformer toy and say, "This is an Imperial Knight", point to a Tonka and say, "This is a Predator", and point to thirty civil war models and say, "These are Imperial Guard, those are scions, that's a terminator squad" -- how will your opponent remember that, and how will they know what weapons they have equipped?

And that's exactly the problem I'm pointing out. If you separate models and rules (like real-world games) outside of the historical wargaming genre, where you don't have real armies/units/etc to tell you what everything looks like and what every unit/model should be armed with, you run into huge WYSIWYG problems. Non-historical games, especially scifi games, need coordination between the rule authors and model designers to make sure that everything is WYSIWYG.

GW is a very long ways from insolvency and a forced acquisition, because its fundamentals are pretty good, despite gamer doom and gloom. It has both physical and intellectual property assets that aren't going to devalue, it has significant cash reserves, it isn't leveraged, it's profitable, and it has a worldwide distribution infrastructure. In addition, its overheads are not high, and quite controllable. From a management perspective, the company appears to speak with one voice -- there are no significant shareholders or board members who dissent from the company's vision.

If the fundamentals are so great then why do they keep losing revenue and profit?

Also, you don't have to get all the way to bankruptcy to have someone buy the company. All it takes is for stock prices to drop low enough that the shareholders consider an offer of $X per share to be better than the expected value of the company in the future. And we've already seen GW's share prices drop significantly after bad financial reports, so it wouldn't be much of a surprise to see more drops if GW continues to have bad reports and show no sign of being able to reverse the downward trends.

 Peregrine wrote:
And we've already seen GW's share prices drop significantly after bad financial reports, so it wouldn't be much of a surprise to see more drops if GW continues to have bad reports and show no sign of being able to reverse the downward trends.

GW's stock price has fallen much lower in the past and no one has wanted to buy them out. They dropped below 150 in 2008 and below 120 in 2001, despite current drops they're still plodding along at over 500.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
GW's stock price has fallen much lower in the past and no one has wanted to buy them out. They dropped below 150 in 2008 and below 120 in 2001, despite current drops they're still plodding along at over 500.

I didn't say it was inevitable, just possible (and IMO the best outcome for the community). A lot can change in 5-10 years, and share price isn't the only factor.

The idea of Bring Your Own Army depends on the overall resource drain of making an army and the commitment of the players.

For example, MERCS "armies" are only six models each, so if you are moderately keen player you can easily build several. I have four MERCS "armies", firstly because I wanted a game that I could easily set up and play with people who didn't have it, and secondly because I wanted to put a lot of effort into building a fantastic terrain set up for it, so I didn't want to spend a lot of time on the figures.

Conversely, if someone played MERCS with me and liked it, even for a non-wargamer, it is not too big an ask to buy and paint six figures.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


So the reality as I see it, if GW dies or becomes less popular, part of the wargaming community might become more diverse but I think for the most part it will just fragment communities that currently rely on the popularity of 40k to get games in at all. Communities that didn't rely on the popularity of 40k will mostly remain unchanged. If you were playing historical games before you'll just continue to play historical games.

Well, I think there's a legitimate debate over whether there would be another dominant scifi game, were 40k to disappear.

I think that one would emerge, but I don't think it would be WMH, though it could be another product from Privateer Press. The reason is pretty simple: local gaming stores would go out of business on WMH sales -- it's wonderful supplemental income, and we may all like various aspects of it, but most of the people playing WMH don't spend a lot of money.

For hobby shops to stay in business, what they need much more than growth and buy-in is their clientele buying more things and on a regular schedule. In other words, you'd much rather have Joe buy $200 every month, than to have 12 guys each come in and buy $200 every year. The latter sucks, because the ratio of people playing balloons, and you need a lot more space and infrastructure to support them. Plus, it was real nice that they gave you $200, but now they're just taking up space.

This is why MtG, 40k, and even comic books do well at hobby stores -- the store owners know that once invested, the customers will keep coming back for more. There is just no way for someone to keep collecting WMH stuff every month (not enough new stuff, and no way to use it in the game). And, it's impractical to find customers who will buy new games every few months. I mean, they exist, but there aren't tons.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Peregrine wrote:If the fundamentals are so great then why do they keep losing revenue and profit?

Also, you don't have to get all the way to bankruptcy to have someone buy the company. All it takes is for stock prices to drop low enough that the shareholders consider an offer of $X per share to be better than the expected value of the company in the future. And we've already seen GW's share prices drop significantly after bad financial reports, so it wouldn't be much of a surprise to see more drops if GW continues to have bad reports and show no sign of being able to reverse the downward trends.

In order to make money on equities, you need to not only be right, but you need to be right when everyone else is wrong. It's not good enough to correctly figure that GW is a crappy stock; you have to figure it's a crappy stock when everyone else think's it's great, or vice versa. Otherwise, all you're doing is paying market value, and that's a terrible way to make money.

When I say that a company has strong fundamentals, I don't mean that it's making money hand over fist. GW has strong fundamentals because it relies on few external factors to remain viable. It won't be affected by things totally out of its control, like interest rates (if it borrowed a lot of money) or high operating costs that would drastically alter its operations if there were a few lean quarters (like Research in Motion/Blackberry). If GW has bad quarters, it will tighten its belt, adjust things, and plod along. It won't implode and become unable to pay its bills.

Its stock price reflects this: it is kind of crappy because there isn't an expectation of growth; and yet, there is also not terribly crappy because there isn't an expectation of distress. This makes for a really poor acquisition, because in order to control the company, you'll have to pay more for it than what everyone else thinks its worth -- and if the board doesn't want it to happen, you'll just be overpaying for a stock that will have terrible value.

The other reasons that companies acquire other companies don't apply to GW. Nobody will buy GW (at least at its prices) for its intellectual property or goodwill, and nobody who can afford it will want to buy GW for their manufacturing facilities, technical abilities and/or distribution channels.

Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
GW's stock price has fallen much lower in the past and no one has wanted to buy them out. They dropped below 150 in 2008 and below 120 in 2001, despite current drops they're still plodding along at over 500.

I didn't say it was inevitable, just possible (and IMO the best outcome for the community). A lot can change in 5-10 years, and share price isn't the only factor.

Remember that even if someone were to buy 100% of the shares, the directors are locked in until the next AGM. You'd effectively own the company but not be able to make a single decision, and your investment would be at the mercy of a group of people that hate you. This is one of the reasons that hostile takeovers are a complex matter.

Really, for this to occur GW would have to do so badly that it lost money AND ran out of cash. The company would need to be in a position of weakness, and take whatever crappy deal came along because they needed to do so to survive. Then, another company would have to come along, and decide that rescuing GW was worthwhile, because if run properly, the company could be a real star. Or that they could fire everyone and do a better job themselves of the Warhammer brand. Frankly, I think all of these things individually are a unlikely, never mind happening at the same time.