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 Sqorgar wrote:
That's a misreading of the passage I quoted before..

It's nothing whatsoever to do with the passage you quoted before.

The fact that you didn't find the references on google doesn't suddenly make them apply to something else entirely.


You can chalk it up to 'gamer paranoia' if you want, but the simple fact is that this is a company that has publicly stated their belief that we're all just here to buy toy soldiers. This is a company whose CEO publicly branded stores that don't provide gaming space as 'parasites' while simultaneously downsizing GW's own stores and in many cases removing the gaming tables. This is a company that is focusing on pumping out poorly-edited publication after poorly-edited publication with no effort made to go back and correct what are in some cases game-breaking errors. This is a company that ignored years of negative feedback over the direction of the rules of their flagship game only to summarily dump it in favour of a completely different game system with a vaguely similar setting that went even further in entirely the wrong direction.


So no, I don't think it's just 'paranoia' to think that they don't really know what they're doing, at this point.

 jonolikespie wrote:

I'd just like to point out here that when GW say that they believe only 20% of their customers play the game they don't mean only 20% are tourney players, they don't mean only 20% are competitive players or play regularly. If you have put models on the table you are that 20%.
Now of course there is the possibility they are right, but they don't do market research so how would they know?
That is what they believe though.

First, that's obviously an estimate, and I suspect it might even be a little optimistic.

Second, that's not (just) what market research is. That's just comparing the number of people who buy models at their stores with the number of people who play games at their stores. Market research is focus groups and studying competitors, looking for opportunities for expansion, tabulating opinions from social media - it's a whole suite of investigative research into not only the people who buy their product, but also the people who buy the competitor's product, and even people who might buy their product maybe. In a niche industry with very few competitors, none of which are as large and dominant of yourself, the amount of useful information you can actually gain from studying the market (which you created) or your competitors (which you dwarf) is relatively small. There is literally no data about how to grow your corporation bigger because there's no examples to follow that aren't you.

GW absolutely looks at what people are saying about their games and detailing how the buy and play it, but they do it from their own GW stores (which, I believe, requires the shop runner to answer frequent questionnaires about customers rather than watching them directly) rather than hiring a research firm to send out surveys, stalk facebook pages, or peer through competitor financials. GW doesn't do market research in the more classical business term way than the idea that they just completely ignore their own customers. I mean, come on. Do you really think they just release models and don't once watch to see how they sell?


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 insaniak wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
That's a misreading of the passage I quoted before..

It's nothing whatsoever to do with the passage you quoted before.

The fact that you didn't find the references on google doesn't suddenly make them apply to something else entirely.

If you'd like to offer the full quotes, in context, I'd love to read them. I have a sneaky suspicion that you've never seen the full quotes, or remember them incorrectly, as they are not nearly as readily available as borderline hysterical commentary on partial sentence fragments devoid of context.

 Sqorgar wrote:
If you'd like to offer the full quotes, in context, I'd love to read them. I have a sneaky suspicion that you've never seen the full quotes, or remember them incorrectly, as they are not nearly as readily available as borderline hysterical commentary on partial sentence fragments devoid of context.

You're welcome to believe what you want, of course. This isn't a contest that needs to be won. It's a statement of opinion, based on experience. I have no interest in doing your homework for you.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

I'd just like to point out here that when GW say that they believe only 20% of their customers play the game they don't mean only 20% are tourney players, they don't mean only 20% are competitive players or play regularly. If you have put models on the table you are that 20%.
Now of course there is the possibility they are right, but they don't do market research so how would they know?
That is what they believe though.

First, that's obviously an estimate, and I suspect it might even be a little optimistic.

It is a figure GW repeat without ever providing any evidence to back up and it flies in the face of every bit of anecdotal evidence we have. Just go look at any of the polls that occasionally pop up here on Dakka asking if people would continue buying if the game no longer existed. Ask around your local store how many people buy and don't play. If GW honestly believe this (which is an assumption one must make since they are saying they believe it) then they either do have market research supporting that statement (and since they have stated they don't do market research one can assume they are again telling the truth and thus don't) or they are simply talking about a perceived customer base without actually knowing if that is how their customers use their product. And that is dangerous, especially for a company that has been increasing it's release schedule but still has falling sales volume. It shows a serious disconnect between them and their customers that then explains that falling sales volume.

 Sqorgar wrote:
Second, that's not (just) what market research is. That's just comparing the number of people who buy models at their stores with the number of people who play games at their stores. Market research is focus groups and studying competitors, looking for opportunities for expansion, tabulating opinions from social media - it's a whole suite of investigative research into not only the people who buy their product, but also the people who buy the competitor's product, and even people who might buy their product maybe. In a niche industry with very few competitors, none of which are as large and dominant of yourself, the amount of useful information you can actually gain from studying the market (which you created) or your competitors (which you dwarf) is relatively small. There is literally no data about how to grow your corporation bigger because there's no examples to follow that aren't you.

GW have more competitors now than ever before. The market is bigger now than ever before and now is EXACTLY the time they need to be doing that market research. I haven't done any economics or business courses but I would bet you real money that anyone who has would tell you that right now is the worst possible time for GW to dismiss market research. The industry is growing, their competitors are growing, and GW is shrinking and desperately cutting costs left right and center. The lukewarm response of AoS is proof of that. If they asked their customers what they want maybe we wouldn't be arguing about it 3 months later, maybe it would have been a great game we could all enjoy. Or, maybe, they would still piss off their old WHFB fans but they would have brought in more new AoS fans to replace them (something that the 'how is AoS doing in your area' thread, along with plenty of other anecdotal suggests hasn't happened).

 Sqorgar wrote:
GW absolutely looks at what people are saying about their games and detailing how the buy and play it, but they do it from their own GW stores (which, I believe, requires the shop runner to answer frequent questionnaires about customers rather than watching them directly) rather than hiring a research firm to send out surveys, stalk facebook pages, or peer through competitor financials. GW doesn't do market research in the more classical business term way than the idea that they just completely ignore their own customers. I mean, come on. Do you really think they just release models and don't once watch to see how they sell?

No, I think they release models and do watch to see how they sell, but at no point before releasing them do they stop and ask 'is this what the customer wants' and then they are surprised when things don't sell. And I have never heard of GW staff having to fill out surveys like that, where are you getting that information? I have only ever seen them ask for postal codes to gauge where they should place a new store in the area.
I also find it rather laughable that they would use their one man store 'managers' as any kind of indication as to how things are going since those people aren't even allowed to order their own stock, they simple get sent product by a higher up. It would also still be an almost useless form of market research, as they are only asking questions of people who are entering their stores. People who have given up on GW but would return are not being heard, nor are people who have hesitated to start a GW game but could be convinced. They aren't asking people who play competitor's games why they aren't playing GW games, and again if you are shrinking in a growing industry you need to do that.

 jonolikespie wrote:
The lukewarm response of AoS is proof of that. If they asked their customers what they want maybe we wouldn't be arguing about it 3 months later, maybe it would have been a great game we could all enjoy.

This bit. Thank you so very much for writing it. I was seriously beginning to doubt my sanity - this whole gak storm of anti and pro AoS would never have happened to begin with if GW had bothered reaching out and asking their customer base what was going on. Yet AoS discussions worldwide end in pro and anti sides will always focus each other down while ignoring that - again - this gak is fallout from GW's arrogant, narrow minded decision.

 pox wrote:

I have at some point owned every fantasy army except dark elves and Bretonian. I have owned every 40k army at some point. I have played for 20 years, easily painted up well over 5000 miniatures, and have sculpted everything from giant squgoths to greater chaos dragons. I own 15,000 points of painted Orks, and have scratch built everything from battlewagons to a great gargant and a blasta-bomma. I have held painting lessons, sculpting lessons, taught people to play, and ran a game store for a few years. I have played every edition of 40k, and started fantasy in 4th edition. I have played every specialist game, and just about every white dwarf game from the original BF gothic to the dwarf bar brawl to movie marines.

I have ran and organized official GW tournaments including regional 'Ard Boyz, have ran a 48 hour Apocolypse game that was played in shifts, built close to 20 terrain sets, and once played a 13,000 point fantasy battle game with my skaven vs. high elves, all fully painted. (my Skaven alone is over 800 painted models.)

Dude. I thought I was into games in a big way

That is quite impressive.

 pox wrote:

As a designer, do you ever take into account what your customers might want? Do you ever check and see if different wants can be fulfilled at the same time?

Very good question.

The initial concept of a game can come from many places. It might be that someone has thought 'hey, there are no decent 6mm sci-fi games around and Epic left a hole in the market - we can fill that!' It might just be someone saying 'I had the most awesome idea for a game last night', though I could understand that happens less the larger a company gets.

The important thing is that a designer is fired up and enthused with the idea (you can tend to spot the games where that does not happen). At that point, he has a 'vision' of what the game is going to be like, heavily influenced by what he wants to play. The first drafts get written, the designer plays a few games and likes what he sees after making adjustments - and then the playtesters kick in

I'll give you two examples

This happened with Dredd, to begin with. The first draft looked a lot like 1st ed. 40k, with a heavy RPG element and very loose structures on how people were supposed to play, but with lots of ideas of cool things to try. The playtesters took one look at it and said it could not possibly work without a core points system and campaign play based around gangs. It was already 80% of the way there, so the changes were made and you see the game as it is today.

However, and this is a tough one... playtesters are not always right They do represent a key indication of the final audience but, as a designer, sometimes you develop a belief that what the playtesters are telling you is not correct. There is nothing scientific about this aspect, which is where games design becomes more of an art, but you become convinced that the game will be better if you go in the other direction.

A good example here is the new edition of Victory at Sea. Our playtesters on this game are absolutely first class and each one has more knowledge of WWII naval combat in their little finger than I do in my entire head. However, I have to balance their comments against the fact that they are (very long term) naval gamers and not designers.

So, every time they send in a report saying 'very good, but radar doesn't quite work like that, we need to put exceptions in here, here and here...' I may have to kick back and decide that 99% of players really won't care about that level of detail and that it needs to be abstracted out. This, incidentally, is a very, very common failing among playtesters, especially for historical games and, funnily enough, RPGs. They want to create simulations, not games. You could say this is where a major part of the games designing skill comes in, deciding what elements are necessary to make a good game and which are unnecessary fluff that are just going to get in the way.

To properly answer your question though... Yes, you listen to customers and try to shape a game around their expectations - most of the time. However, every now and again you will want to push the boat out further and do something different, and here we are back to the artistic aspect. Sometimes it will work. Sometimes it will fall flat ion its face. And that is how it should be. This is the process by which we get nice things (in the end).

To pull an example already mentioned in this thread, Starship Troopers had a reaction mechanic that allowed models to do things in the opposing player's turn - this would never have come up in any meaningful way in any kind of research. No one was asking for it. It came about because I was tired of my Marines just sitting around doing nothing as a Wave Serpent bombed round the corner, disgorged a load of Banshees, who proceeded to cop them up. I wanted to see if there was a way a type of 'AI' (for want of a better term) could be placed within models. No one asked for it, but it became one of the defining elements of the game.

Sometimes it works.

At the end of the day, most designers are just trying to create what they think is the best a game can possibly be with the tools they have available.

 pox wrote:
D&D 3.5 and pathfinder are great because they have all the full miniature rules,

Well, when 3.0 came out, there was a large rift among players who thought it was too much like a miniatures game...

 pox wrote:
The Generals Compendium was a great example of this, it both had "forge the narrative" articles for castles, boats, unusual terrain and campaign rules, but it also had rules in it for ultra competitive play. (The grudgematch rules.)

That was an interesting book. However, I might guess that the majority of people who picked it up (which would be a minority of Warhammer players in the first place) simply read it, thought 'cool ideas' and then went right back to Pitched Battles...

 pox wrote:
but you say you're friends with a lot of them, so maybe you can shed some light on this.

I am not friends with a lot of them - I have worked with them in the past, I know a clutch of the 'old guard' now working for other companies, and I still know one or two in the design studio. We are not besties or anything

 insaniak wrote:

You're welcome to believe what you want, of course. This isn't a contest that needs to be won. It's a statement of opinion, based on experience. I have no interest in doing your homework for you.

It's not a statement of opinion! You are stating that GW said certain things. In quotes, even. That's a statement of fact. Or it would be if anyone could double check it. On an internet filled with pages dedicated to documented every misstep GW makes, it is amazing that these quotes are not easily found. And the fact that you are willing to argue about it, but not actually back up your comments makes me think you are just repeating things you heard second hand and don't actually know where these quotes come from or the context they were supposedly used in.

And the reason you don't bother looking it up is because it doesn't actually matter to you whether these statements are true or not.

I tried looking it up in the court documents, but couldn't find it either. There's almost certainly something matching it somewhere, but I have no idea where in the testimony it could be found. The court proceedings are spread over a lot of different documents.

The "but nobody was asking for a points system!" is interesting. It's great to read MongooseMatt's perspective. Here is mine: as a designer, you should be designing for whoever your hypothetical player is (even if it's just you), but that doesn't mean you rely on your players for design solutions. You rely on them to point out problems, shortcomings. Their solutions are often not going to be very useful, partly because they don't have your design expertise, but also because you're working towards a lot of design goals that aren't completely known to them.

In the case of points, people have long complained about army composition systems from all sorts of angles. There is a problem there, somewhere! The trick is figuring out what it is and what the best solution is for your game. Games Workshop made one particular decision here.

 jonolikespie wrote:

It is a figure GW repeat without ever providing any evidence to back up and it flies in the face of every bit of anecdotal evidence we have.

The reason anecdotal evidence is worthless is because it is extremely biased and impossible to quantify. I mean, if there was a person who bought the models but didn't play the game, how would you know? You wouldn't be playing against them at the store. You wouldn't be talking with them on Dakka. These guys are like dark matter to you. They exist nowhere you exist.

Ask around your local store how many people buy and don't play.

I buy and don't play. About 15 years ago, I picked up a 40k starter (the one with Dark Eldar) to assemble and try painting, but never read the rule book or played a game. My first painted mini was a space marine though. I've got boxes full of DnD and Star Wars miniatures that far outstrip the number of games I've played. I guess the same could be said for Dust Tactics and Monsterpocalypse, despite my actually enjoying those as games. I've got a box of Hellboy HeroClix figures, but never played a game of HeroClix. Even now, I have plans for getting Dark Vengeance, Dreadfleet, and the upcoming HH box, with exactly zero intention of playing any of those games. I've got a box of about a bajillion Bones miniatures from the first Reaper kickstarter that I just use to test out paint schemes. Hell, when I first bought AoS, it was for the models and only a half interest in actually playing it.

I do actively play WMH and AoS though, but that's a relatively recent thing for me.

And that is dangerous, especially for a company that has been increasing it's release schedule but still has falling sales volume. It shows a serious disconnect between them and their customers that then explains that falling sales volume.

I suspect that the decreasing sales volume has more to do with a global recession (sales for everything have been dropping until recently) and competition from not only other, increasingly popular miniature games (WMH, Inf, Mantic) but also from board games which now increasingly feature miniatures (Descent, Imperial Assault, Super Dungeon Explore, Kingdom Death, Cool Mini or Not, every other Kickstarter) - all thanks to CAD design and 3D printers. Basically, GW has more competition for toy soldiers now than it ever did. It's like how portable game sales went down when the iPhone came out. It isn't because GW is clueless towards their audience. If anything, I think they know their audience too well.

GW have more competitors now than ever before. The market is bigger now than ever before and now is EXACTLY the time they need to be doing that market research. I haven't done any economics or business courses but I would bet you real money that anyone who has would tell you that right now is the worst possible time for GW to dismiss market research. The industry is growing, their competitors are growing, and GW is shrinking and desperately cutting costs left right and center.

They absolutely have more competitors now, but I suspect the reason they are shrinking is more because they inflated past their market share in the first place. In times of prosperity, it is easy increase production to meet the new demand, but once that demand shrinks back to its equilibrium point, it is very difficult for vertically integrated companies to dial it back as well. My guess is that GW had a really good run right before the housing market burst and sent the global economy into decline, made a bunch of necessarily but unpopular decisions during the recession to stay afloat, and now that things are getting better, is looking for ways they can expand their audience to get back to their pre-recession popularity. I have no evidence for any of this, but I don't think GW would've released AoS two years ago.

As for market research, I can't say whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing. I suspect that it would cost a lot more than it would benefit them. It's one of those things. It's not worth painting your house when the lawn hasn't been mowed in three years. There's a lot of obvious things they can fix now that they don't need to pay anyone to tell them about. Maybe after they've mowed the lawn, they can hire someone to tell them what color to paint the house. Even then, GW is in such a specific industry that I'm not sure anyone could give them useful advice that didn't involve "be in a different industry".

The lukewarm response of AoS is proof of that. If they asked their customers what they want maybe we wouldn't be arguing about it 3 months later, maybe it would have been a great game we could all enjoy.

But AoS wasn't created for their current customers. And as much as I enjoy the game, I do admit that the response has been lukewarm. I think that will change as more releases come out though and the sting of WHFB softens.

And I have never heard of GW staff having to fill out surveys like that, where are you getting that information?

I think it was a thread on Warseer about when store owners were expected to paint the HH set before release. A poster mentioned that the staff used to get free models and other bonuses for painting on their free time and that they also had surveys they had to fill out. I believe it was mentioned that they may not do that anymore, but he wasn't sure.

I also find it rather laughable that they would use their one man store 'managers' as any kind of indication as to how things are going since those people aren't even allowed to order their own stock, they simple get sent product by a higher up.

That's the case for a lot of stores. I used to be friends with the manager of a Babbages and he would tell me that corporate would just send them stuff. And I know some flagship stores don't get to control their inventory directly either. It's probably just the difference between a FLGS and a corporately owned store.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/4890/355433.page#5739537

Filtering thread to view czakk's posts or weeble1000's is a good place to look for any information related to that case.

People need to stop getting their knickers in a twist regarding GWs lack of market research.

A premium product company doesn't need to do it*.

Apple don't ask you what you want in their next product, do they?

Some companies retroactively listen to the consumer (Xbox One, Corvus Belli, Coke etc) but otherwise they're not interested in what a few dozen people have to say on the internet.

*that's how they see themselves, doesn't matter what anyone else thinks

The best proof of Games Workshop being an arogant, snide and backwards company that loathes its consumers and doesn't give a crap about gaming is the release of Age of Sigmar

A company that can lose 25% of its sales in three years doesn't need to listen to its customers.

 Sqorgar wrote:
The reason anecdotal evidence is worthless is because it is extremely biased and impossible to quantify. I mean, if there was a person who bought the models but didn't play the game, how would you know? You wouldn't be playing against them at the store. You wouldn't be talking with them on Dakka. These guys are like dark matter to you. They exist nowhere you exist.

But as I said, GW seem to have NO evidence one way or the other. Anecdotal is better than nothing.

 Sqorgar wrote:
I buy and don't play.

Do you think that you and people like you make up a significant percentage of GW's customer base? Such as, oh i don't know, 80%?

 Sqorgar wrote:
I suspect that the decreasing sales volume has more to do with a global recession (sales for everything have been dropping until recently) and competition from not only other, increasingly popular miniature games (WMH, Inf, Mantic) but also from board games which now increasingly feature miniatures (Descent, Imperial Assault, Super Dungeon Explore, Kingdom Death, Cool Mini or Not, every other Kickstarter) - all thanks to CAD design and 3D printers. Basically, GW has more competition for toy soldiers now than it ever did. It's like how portable game sales went down when the iPhone came out. It isn't because GW is clueless towards their audience. If anything, I think they know their audience too well.

Regardless decreasing sales are decreasing sales and any smart company would be using market research to try and address that.

 Sqorgar wrote:
They absolutely have more competitors now, but I suspect the reason they are shrinking is more because they inflated past their market share in the first place. In times of prosperity, it is easy increase production to meet the new demand, but once that demand shrinks back to its equilibrium point, it is very difficult for vertically integrated companies to dial it back as well. My guess is that GW had a really good run right before the housing market burst and sent the global economy into decline, made a bunch of necessarily but unpopular decisions during the recession to stay afloat, and now that things are getting better, is looking for ways they can expand their audience to get back to their pre-recession popularity. I have no evidence for any of this, but I don't think GW would've released AoS two years ago.

Most of the time luxury goods are safe from recessions, in fact I am pretty sure Kirby himself has told investors exactly that. And now that we are through it GW still seem to be struggling to level out. They are still cutting costs left and right. I'd also like to point out that in Australia at least the falling sales started years before the GFC.

 Sqorgar wrote:
As for market research, I can't say whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing. I suspect that it would cost a lot more than it would benefit them. It's one of those things. It's not worth painting your house when the lawn hasn't been mowed in three years. There's a lot of obvious things they can fix now that they don't need to pay anyone to tell them about. Maybe after they've mowed the lawn, they can hire someone to tell them what color to paint the house. Even then, GW is in such a specific industry that I'm not sure anyone could give them useful advice that didn't involve "be in a different industry".

How about 'your customers consider the game to be an important aspect of the hobby'?
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/666183.page just sayin'
(And I know that Dakka probably doesn't represent the average GW customer, but then without market research you really can't prove that it doesn't either.)

 Sqorgar wrote:
But AoS wasn't created for their current customers.

No, it seems to be created for a hypothetical new customer base made up of people such of yourself, but without anyone stopping to ask the question will this new customer base be bigger than the following WHFB still had?

 Sqorgar wrote:
I think it was a thread on Warseer about when store owners were expected to paint the HH set before release. A poster mentioned that the staff used to get free models and other bonuses for painting on their free time and that they also had surveys they had to fill out. I believe it was mentioned that they may not do that anymore, but he wasn't sure.

Ah. Sadly GW used to do a lot of great things. They stopped a lot of those kinds of things years ago though.


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Alright, to the people actually thinking market research isn't imortant have a good read through this.
http://insaneangel.com/insaneangel/RPG/Dancey.html

The parallels between TSR and GW are enormous, even down to the overly zealous copywrite protection and the "too big to fail" mentality.

 monders wrote:
People need to stop getting their knickers in a twist regarding GWs lack of market research.

A premium product company doesn't need to do it*.

Apple don't ask you what you want in their next product, do they?

Some companies retroactively listen to the consumer (Xbox One, Corvus Belli, Coke etc) but otherwise they're not interested in what a few dozen people have to say on the internet.

*that's how they see themselves, doesn't matter what anyone else thinks

If GW ever thinks their brand is on par with Microsoft, Apple, Coke... they are SERIOUSLY deluded. Farther than I ever imagined.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 monders wrote:
People need to stop getting their knickers in a twist regarding GWs lack of market research.

A premium product company doesn't need to do it*.

Apple don't ask you what you want in their next product, do they?

Some companies retroactively listen to the consumer (Xbox One, Corvus Belli, Coke etc) but otherwise they're not interested in what a few dozen people have to say on the internet.

*that's how they see themselves, doesn't matter what anyone else thinks

If GW ever thinks their brand is on par with Microsoft, Apple, Coke... they are SERIOUSLY deluded. Farther than I ever imagined.

I'm pretty sure Kirby has compared himself to Steve Jobs on more than one occasion.

 jonolikespie wrote:
No, it seems to be created for a hypothetical new customer base made up of people such of yourself, but without anyone stopping to ask the question will this new customer base be bigger than the following WHFB still had

One word - "Otiose".

GW's attitude is dismissive and arrogant of its customer base and competition.
It's even more insulting to the customer base, in that they both take them for granted and rule them as discardable.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
I buy and don't play.

Do you think that you and people like you make up a significant percentage of GW's customer base? Such as, oh i don't know, 80%?

Do you know, to play Devil's Advocate... it might be.

It is a truism of RPGs that (maybe 80%) of books get bought, read... and then sit on a shelf. Having been involved in sales of second hand GW models... you know... that 80% might be a thing.

No solid figures to bring to the table on this but a very large proportion of models getting bought and then never played with...

Might just be possible.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
I buy and don't play.

Do you think that you and people like you make up a significant percentage of GW's customer base? Such as, oh i don't know, 80%?

Do you know, to play Devil's Advocate... it might be.

It is a truism of RPGs that (maybe 80%) of books get bought, read... and then sit on a shelf. Having been involved in sales of second hand GW models... you know... that 80% might be a thing.

No solid figures to bring to the table on this but a very large proportion of models getting bought and then never played with...

Might just be possible.

You don't sound very convinced, though. Or is it just me?

My take on the 80/20 thing:

1. I buy a box of models because I really want them, both for the rules and their look.
2. Lets say that I can spend 1 hour each day on painting and assembling it.
3. I want it to look good enough so I'm not doing a sloppy job on that 13 quid meganob.
4. After 30 days diligently working on the model I have completed it and have at last scheduled my monthly 2 hour game.

Am I gamer enough? Am I a modeller/collector? In which category do I belong provided that I game on a certain, regular basis, but spend a negligible amount on the actual game. The answer probably depends on what you consider the minimum gaming time one spends on gaming. I have pals that would say that my one monthly game is not enough for me to be a gamer (regular). It really depends on the context and personal understanding of what a "gamer" is.

As an author, I have two rules.
#1. If the audience hates it and thinks it sucks. Don't do it.
#2. If the audience loves it and thinks it rocks. Do it.

You can talk about experimentation and art, but the reality of it is that I'm in a business and need to make money. GW is the same way. They can experiment and make art all they want, (the idea that artists can just do whatever they want is false) but in the end, they have to make money and right now sales are shrinking. The fact that they're not even trying to figure out why is insane. Making games regardless of what the customers want is a good way to remain clueless. If they have enough capitol to invest in an experiment, sure, but your core games (or game in GW's case) better be rock solid.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Do you think that you and people like you make up a significant percentage of GW's customer base? Such as, oh i don't know, 80%?

I'm saying you have no way of knowing. You didn't know I existed until I join Dakka - after I started getting serious about Age of Sigmar. Who knows how many other people are out there, buying miniatures and not interacting with the community at large? And anecdotal evidence is not better than anything, as it can lead you to jump to conclusions based on an incomplete picture drawn by your own confirmation bias. It is better to assume nothing than rely on faulty observations.

Regardless decreasing sales are decreasing sales and any smart company would be using market research to try and address that.

Honestly, I'm not a business major, so I don't feel comfortable saying what a smart company would or wouldn't do. Needless to say, not every business does market research or relies on it to the extent you seem to want GW to.

Most of the time luxury goods are safe from recessions, in fact I am pretty sure Kirby himself has told investors exactly that.

I'm pretty sure that luxury goods merely survive through recessions, not profit from them. As in, their sales will drop (like everybody else's), but the market will not disappear completely.

How about 'your customers consider the game to be an important aspect of the hobby'?
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/666183.page just sayin'
(And I know that Dakka probably doesn't represent the average GW customer, but then without market research you really can't prove that it doesn't either.)

You are like, super hung up on this market research thing, aren't you? Does it upset you that GW doesn't ask you personally how they should run their company?

No, it seems to be created for a hypothetical new customer base made up of people such of yourself, but without anyone stopping to ask the question will this new customer base be bigger than the following WHFB still had?

What makes you think it wouldn't be? From what I understand, the WHFB fans weren't that large a group. Even at its height, it was smaller than 40k was. So you can make the very easy argument that 40k fans could support fantasy better than WHFB fans ever could. So if they were going to reboot Warhammer in an effort to make it more popular, should they keep it like it was (WHFB fans barely keeping it profitable, and leaving faster than they could be replaced by new players) or make it more like 40k (which would cannibalize their own playerbase)? Or perhaps they should take a third option altogether?

The parallels between TSR and GW are enormous, even down to the overly zealous copywrite protection and the "too big to fail" mentality.

Except TSR started in 1973 and Games Workshop started in 1975, and one of those is still around today. Hint: not TSR.

The copyright thing is a matter of scale. It happens to every corporation that reaches a specific size, and nobody uses Disney or Apple's litigiousness as proof that they are teetering on the brink of destruction. Eventually a company has reached a saturation point with its audience and they spend more time trying to keep their audience than gain a new one. If anything, Age of Sigmar is proof that they are looking for new customers rather than fighting the losing fight to keep their old ones. Age of Sigmar is a GOOD thing. It is their iMac, their Wii. It's their blue ocean strategy to increase the size of the audience, from which ALL miniature games will ultimately benefit. It may be a gamble that doesn't pay off, but only time will tell there.

Seriously, you guys are so determined to prove that Games Workshop is some uncaring monster of a corporation that cares only about profit and would spit in the face of fans if given the chance that you ignore all the successes and good things GW has done over the past four decades. There are a lot of things that GW does that I don't like, but there is a more reasonable middle ground to be had where you can accept that they are capable of great things as well as horrible things, and treat each instance objectively rather than sitting there, mouth agape, acting like GW just personally insulted you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
The best proof of Games Workshop being an arogant, snide and backwards company that loathes its consumers and doesn't give a crap about gaming is the release of Age of Sigmar

Show me on the doll where Games Workshop touched you...

Wait, the guy that thinks anyone that wants to win is a WAAC douche is lecturing on being biased?

 MWHistorian wrote:
As an author, I have two rules.
#1. If the audience hates it and thinks it sucks. Don't do it.
#2. If the audience loves it and thinks it rocks. Do it.

I believe it was PT Barnum who said you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

 CoreCommander wrote:
My take on the 80/20 thing:

1. I buy a box of models because I really want them, both for the rules and their look.
2. Lets say that I can spend 1 hour each day on painting and assembling it.
3. I want it to look good enough so I'm not doing a sloppy job on that 13 quid meganob.
4. After 30 days diligently working on the model I have completed it and have at last scheduled my monthly 2 hour game.

Am I gamer enough? Am I a modeller/collector? In which category do I belong provided that I game on a certain, regular basis, but spend a negligible amount on the actual game. The answer probably depends on what you consider the minimum gaming time one spends on gaming. I have pals that would say that my one monthly game is not enough for me to be a gamer (regular). It really depends on the context and personal understanding of what a "gamer" is.

From what I understand of GW's language in their communications you ar a gamer. They imply that 80% of their customer base doesn't play at all.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 CoreCommander wrote:
My take on the 80/20 thing:

1. I buy a box of models because I really want them, both for the rules and their look.
2. Lets say that I can spend 1 hour each day on painting and assembling it.
3. I want it to look good enough so I'm not doing a sloppy job on that 13 quid meganob.
4. After 30 days diligently working on the model I have completed it and have at last scheduled my monthly 2 hour game.

Am I gamer enough? Am I a modeller/collector? In which category do I belong provided that I game on a certain, regular basis, but spend a negligible amount on the actual game. The answer probably depends on what you consider the minimum gaming time one spends on gaming. I have pals that would say that my one monthly game is not enough for me to be a gamer (regular). It really depends on the context and personal understanding of what a "gamer" is.

From what I understand of GW's language in their communications you ar a gamer. They imply that 80% of their customer base doesn't play at all.

Pro tip. If you play the game, you're a gamer.

Chances are you're an WAAC gamer, at that!

It doesn't matter if you play a game once a year. Those models aren't meant to be on the tabletop, damn it!


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 Sqorgar wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
The best proof of Games Workshop being an arogant, snide and backwards company that loathes its consumers and doesn't give a crap about gaming is the release of Age of Sigmar

Show me on the doll where Games Workshop touched you...

And what's the purpose of that comment of yours again? To be rude and childish?

 Sqorgar wrote:
What makes you think it wouldn't be? From what I understand, the WHFB fans weren't that large a group. Even at its height, it was smaller than 40k was

You do understand that 40k exists because WHFB was growing so well that GW decided to capitalize and reach out to the Sci-Fi crowd... but yeah... sure.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
As an author, I have two rules.
#1. If the audience hates it and thinks it sucks. Don't do it.
#2. If the audience loves it and thinks it rocks. Do it.

I believe it was PT Barnum who said you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

There is some irony to this mis-quote, and I think it applies even more to GW.

The quote is "you can FOOL some of the people all of the time; you can FOOL all of the people some of the time; but you can never FOOL all of the people all of the time."

 Sqorgar wrote:
Seriously, you guys are so determined to prove that Games Workshop is some uncaring monster of a corporation that cares only about profit and would spit in the face of fans if given the chance that you ignore all the successes and good things GW has done over the past four decades. There are a lot of things that GW does that I don't like, but there is a more reasonable middle ground to be had where you can accept that they are capable of great things as well as horrible things, and treat each instance objectively rather than sitting there, mouth agape, acting like GW just personally insulted you.

Show me on the doll where the bad people who don't share your opinion touched you...

Omg haha!