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Kanluwen, it's clear the store you're talking about is a more Magic-sales-dependent store, and so it might not matter to them as much to push AoS. Floor space doesn't determine that - the similar store I mentioned also is Magic-focused (at least as far as sales go!).
I think those kinds of stores would be happy enough to just sell some 40k, let alone other ranges... we had a huge warmachine group at our similar store and couldn't get them to stock much warmachine, regardless.
So, you're just talking about a store that isn't very good at selling miniatures... but the point is even stores that are VERY good at it (mikhaila's, Reecius for web sales, and Sergeant Horse, and several others who have posted here) are having trouble selling it.
RiTides wrote: Kanluwen, it's clear the store you're talking about is a more Magic-sales-dependent store, and so it might not matter to them as much to push AoS. Floor space doesn't determine that - the similar store I mentioned also is Magic-focused (at least as far as sales go!).
I think those kinds of stores would be happy enough to just sell some 40k, let alone other ranges... we had a huge warmachine group at our similar store and couldn't get them to stock much warmachine, regardless.
So, you're just talking about a store that isn't very good at selling miniatures... but the point is even stores that are VERY good at it (mikhaila's, Reecius for web sales, and Sergeant Horse, and several others who have posted here) are having trouble selling it.
Amusingly enough, they're great at hosting things for miniatures and selling 40k/Warmachine/Flames of War...they just can't be bothered trying to actually do any research on new games. They go based on what their veterans tell them and nothing else.
But for reference, here's what those 3 store owners I mentioned posted here - I'm noting them because they're some of the more prolific Dakka store owner posters, but several others posted in this thread with similar thoughts, as well.
My sources in GW have people looking for ways to polish a turd and sell models. AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW.
Not enough people actually care about AOS. They play some because they have models, but few people are building armies.
Lizarmen codex with no new models? Pretty much tells the story. My sales rep was ok with me not even ordering it.
I could write a 2 page list of reasons why it's failing, but i don't feel like arguing with the "it's only anectdotal evidence" crowd, and don't feel like beating a dead horse. GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month, and has my older WFB customers selling their armies on ebay. Good job GW.
Sergeant Horse:
Spoiler:
Sergeant Horse wrote: We tried at our store, ran some events, tried to promote it, but it's pretty dead. I have 2 people playing (new players that have never done minis before). Everybody else plays KoW, or if they want skirmish fantasy, they do Frostgrave or Mordheim.
I used to be a HUUUGE Fantasy playing store, with tournaments hitting over 30 and regular play nights with every table full, AoS killed it and every single player moved to Kings of War or quit altogether. In the last few months I've slashed my Fantasy wall by 2/3 and don't even reorder unless it's a special order. That broke my heart personally, I own 8 Fantasy armies.
Personally, I tried AoS, it's ok for what it is, but I played Fantasy for the rule set and world, both are gone. You can say I can just play 8th, but that's not realistic since most gamers move to supported game systems, and KoW has taken over.
Automatically Appended Next Post: That being said, if GW brought out a 9th edition......MONEY.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As to reasons it's failing imo.
It's not as good a mass fantasy game as Kings of War
It's not as good a skirmish game as Mordheim, Frostgrave or any other skirmish game
The Stormcasts are boring. Great models, but boring fluff and with being effectively immortal, there's no fear or connection when they die.
Khorne is also the most BORING of Chaos gods.. Blood blood skulls skulls blah blah blah. Nurgle or Tzeentch would have been way more interesting.
A lack of info on other races is a killer too. I've read the books, listened to the audio books and I'm not impressed with the world at all, it lacks flavor.
Cost doesn't really come into it I find, people who want to will buy the products, people who can't afford to or don't find the value in it, won't.
Reecius:
Spoiler:
Reecius wrote: Yeah, AoS just isn't selling that well for us, we're liquidating our inventory for the time being.
And for the record, here's a poll from the AoS section that I posted earlier, along with some commentary:
That's the rub, Vermis! In the AoS section, there was a poll which had these results:
AoS going strong or dying out in your area?
A. Picking up steam. - 24% (135)
B. Definitely less interest as time goes on. 76% (423)
That's over 550 responses. It's people who check an online forum, of course - those are the only people who you can poll without it being a local (or "anecdotal") result!
---
It could be doing well in parts of the UK, or in certain stores in the US... but on the whole, you've got a 3 to 1 ratio of people saying there is a lagging interest in AoS. This close to the launch of such a "flagship" product, that would be why people are saying it's failing. The way GW has positioned it is not to be a small Specialist game type of theirs, but a major line - and indications are people are not adopting it, and even people who considered it are often no longer doing so. GW experienced this recently with The Hobbit, too (seriously - did anyone actually play that?) so they are not unused to the idea - but they blamed that on not owning the IP, hence relegating it to "specialist game" status to focus on their own (new, in this case) IP.
It's interesting to see Reecius mention a lot of interest (and sales) at the beginning, but not continuing on... although mikhaila says it has failed, this seems to match what he experienced a bit at the beginning, too. I know I was certainly interested at the beginning - and am no longer, with everyone I know embracing KoW or moving on to other games.
The trend is really clear that AoS is not being adopted and is losing steam since release, but in some ways that just makes sense - there have been no releases for other factions and people just don't know what to make of it. We'll see if the "fire dwarfs" in January help... I'm certainly interested in seeing those sculpts and if I can use any for my chaos dwarfs (that I'm building for KoW now, but will pull awesome models from anywhere ).
Kilkrazy wrote: If AoS was a balls-to-the-wall awesome game, backed by the mighty marketing power of GW, it couldn't fail, whatever some vets might say about it.
Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case.
And when the game is not so great, and you have ticked off the veterans that you rely on for word of mouth advertising... you have problems.
I do not know about other places, but around here, it is the regruntled* vets that are crowing about the return of the Specialist Games - mostly Necromunda.
The Auld Grump
* If people can become disgruntled, then obviously they can become regruntled when they get their gruntle back.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/28 21:40:43
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
At our store probably ~95% of the fantasy stuff all went on the Black Friday clearance tables. GW sales are nearly stagnant from last year. PP sales are up ~33%, though still below GW's stagnant number. Non-GW/PP miniatures sales are nearly double, not quite matching GW and PP combined.
I'm not so sure that this has ever been different for any miniature game that takes hundreds of dollars (and, potentially, hours) commitment. A question to ask is: other than Warhammer 40k, what miniature games inspires people to go spend hundreds or thousands of dollars ** and keep coming back to spend hundreds or thousands more ** in the same order of magnitude of Magic cards?
X-Wing seems to manage sell quite a bit and is constantly out of sock and can't keep up with the demand, and one of their own games (40k) is doing at least okay. GW is to to blame for the lackluster launch/performance, simple as that (who else cold it be). They made the product and must have had some plan besides "we make it and they will buy it". If they see that WHFB isn't selling anymore and they replace it with AoS (fewer but more expensive models) and do nothing (relatively speaking) to promote it then how can they expect the huge sales numbers that give them the revenue they need to keep the franchise alive. They killed one game off and replaced it with something they are themselves not really supporting or advertising (just releasing products and hoping it will sell is not viable these days). Didn't they even expect a little bit of a backlash from veterans who are invested in their old game? On top of that the new game can use armies from the old one yet they release new stuff somehow hoping that people will replace everything.
They created a game where the value proposition is low because it has to rebuild everything: a fanbase, investment into the lore, armies, local groups who play it, literary everything. On top of that they seem to not be promoting it in any significant way. The last time they released a new game they had movies and a third party magazine that was sold in regular bookstores (and had free stuff) and funneled people and money into their direction. But they still didn't get the message that marketing and advertisement can be useful.
They should have done much more. Right now it feels like they tried to do something that will force people to buy new stuff (you don't need to buy all the new stuff but it's really great for this brand new game), hoping that the free rules will entice people into buying stuff while forgetting that free rules are worthless if they are of no value. Their idea of backwards compatibility didn't really lead to people accepting the demise of the old WHFB.
They could have consolidated and reduced their WHFB output (it looked like they wanted to do that after the End Times campaign) and saved on development cost and shelf space or cut the whole game (and fired some more people) if it's not profitable anymore. Instead they invested money, time, and effort into this half hearted relaunch. AoS is a hard sell and GW is to blame for that because they orchestrated the release. Why should the player-base or the stores who have no control over the game, rules, miniatures, or the release schedule be blamed for the lackluster start? GW surprised everyone with the launch of the new game and if somebody read the internet rumours about it they were just confusing.
If they need continuous sales then they could have changed the release schedule with the new game and go with a parallel release for all armies instead of keeping the old cycle where one army gets a big chunk and everybody else get to spend no money at all because their army is either not there or it's not their turn. That also would have given people multiple aesthetic options to chose from instead of just Sigmar boys and Chaos boys. This project was theirs to fumble and it looks like they did exactly that. The company is 40 years old, they should have enough data to do better without hand-wringing or having so many unknown factors.
AegisGrimm wrote: Yeah, both stores in my area that carry models talked down about AoS right from the start. Good or bad, it was the goodwill killer for WHFB.
Fair enough if they choose not to carry it, its their prerogative but if thats not the case then its just bad business.
It can depend on many factors - how well or badly individual retailers have been treated by GW, minimum buy-ins and gauging the local levels of interest in an upcoming product - as well as how much dead WHFB stock is sitting there and whether or not they have offered to take it back (and for how much).
Mario wrote: GW is to to blame for the lackluster launch/performance, simple as that (who else cold it be). They made the product and must have had some plan besides "we make it and they will buy it". If they see that WHFB isn't selling anymore and they replace it with AoS (fewer but more expensive models) and do nothing (relatively speaking) to promote it then how can they expect the huge sales numbers that give them the revenue they need to keep the franchise alive. They killed one game off and replaced it with something they are themselves not really supporting or advertising (just releasing products and hoping it will sell is not viable these days). Didn't they even expect a little bit of a backlash from veterans who are invested in their old game? On top of that the new game can use armies from the old one yet they release new stuff somehow hoping that people will replace everything.
I pretty much agree, but to every sentence there, my response is: you would think, wouldn't you? GW is to blame for the lackluster launch/performance, simple as that (who else cold it be). You would think, wouldn't you? They made the product and must have had some plan besides "we make it and they will buy it". You would think, wouldn't you? But i'm not so certain. I remember reading somewhere (i forget where) that AoS was being marketed to some retailers as a chance to get rid of the bitter vets that were ruining the hobby and get new customers in. You would hope they had a plan beyond "we make it and they will buy it" but i'm not seeing any signs of it. GW doesn't really do advertising (possibly excepting the uk with their highstreet presence), how do they expect new customers to even know it exists, let alone be tempting into playing/collecting? Wasn't that a kevin costner movie - if you build it, they will come?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/29 03:54:41
Torga_DW wrote: I pretty much agree, but to every sentence there, my response is: you would think, wouldn't you? GW is to blame for the lackluster launch/performance, simple as that (who else cold it be). You would think, wouldn't you? They made the product and must have had some plan besides "we make it and they will buy it". You would think, wouldn't you? But i'm not so certain. I remember reading somewhere (i forget where) that AoS was being marketed to some retailers as a chance to get rid of the bitter vets that were ruining the hobby and get new customers in. You would hope they had a plan beyond "we make it and they will buy it" but i'm not seeing any signs of it. GW doesn't really do advertising (possibly excepting the uk with their highstreet presence), how do they expect new customers to even know it exists, let alone be tempting into playing/collecting? Wasn't that a kevin costner movie - if you build it, they will come?
One could argue: how do most people get into the miniature wargaming hobby? How do people get into building and painting models? In my experience, it's not because they've seen an advertisement in a magazine, online, on television, in a movie theatre, and so forth. There are people who are drawn to the hobby of miniatures and models and miniature wargames, and they end up going to hobby shops, where they look at stuff on shelves, and perhaps buy things.
Since it's a pretty small niche, the well-stocked independent stores basically sell all the most popular stuff (and the GW stores obviously sell GW things). So the equation, I think, is more like, "If you build it, and they like it, they will seek you out and buy it."
There are a lot of reasons to buy things too -- cool models, good price, good game, my friends play it, my friends don't play a certain alternative, et cetera.
Anyways. My point is only that I don't think that a bunch of ads anywhere will make a huge difference to the hobby at large. Most people who are interested in miniatures hobbies know where the very small number of stores are and seek out any stores that are within travelling range, and quickly become familiar with what they can buy locally. Then, it's not a huge leap for them to figure out what's available online. In a way, it's not much different from model trains. I have friends who are into that kind too, and it's just something you have an interest in and then hunt down, and either grow a passion for or abandon.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/29 04:28:04
Torga_DW wrote: I pretty much agree, but to every sentence there, my response is: you would think, wouldn't you? GW is to blame for the lackluster launch/performance, simple as that (who else cold it be). You would think, wouldn't you? They made the product and must have had some plan besides "we make it and they will buy it". You would think, wouldn't you? But i'm not so certain. I remember reading somewhere (i forget where) that AoS was being marketed to some retailers as a chance to get rid of the bitter vets that were ruining the hobby and get new customers in. You would hope they had a plan beyond "we make it and they will buy it" but i'm not seeing any signs of it. GW doesn't really do advertising (possibly excepting the uk with their highstreet presence), how do they expect new customers to even know it exists, let alone be tempting into playing/collecting? Wasn't that a kevin costner movie - if you build it, they will come?
One could argue: how do most people get into the miniature wargaming hobby? How do people get into building and painting models? In my experience, it's not because they've seen an advertisement in a magazine, online, on television, in a movie theatre, and so forth. There are people who are drawn to the hobby of miniatures and models and miniature wargames, and they end up going to hobby shops, where they look at stuff on shelves, and perhaps buy things.
Since it's a pretty small niche, the well-stocked independent stores basically sell all the most popular stuff (and the GW stores obviously sell GW things). So the equation, I think, is more like, "If you build it, and they like it, they will seek you out and buy it."
There are a lot of reasons to buy things too -- cool models, good price, good game, my friends play it, my friends don't play a certain alternative, et cetera.
Anyways. My point is only that I don't think that a bunch of ads anywhere will make a huge difference to the hobby at large. Most people who are interested in miniatures hobbies know where the very small number of stores are and seek out any stores that are within travelling range, and quickly become familiar with what they can buy locally. Then, it's not a huge leap for them to figure out what's available online. In a way, it's not much different from model trains. I have friends who are into that kind too, and it's just something you have an interest in and then hunt down, and either grow a passion for or abandon.
Probably very true, which is why its even more important for GW to not alienate its customers.
Also, check out my history blog: Minimum Wage Historian, a fun place to check out history that often falls between the couch cushions.
wuestenfux wrote: If Mikhaila is loosing thousands of Dollars, GW will loose millions.
Recovered partially by Betrayal at Calth.
But who needs more Marines or 5 more Termies?
Enough people to prop up the company after they binned one of their main lines and introduced a not very popular one, apparently.
AOS is just a bad product. GW is quite capable of making something that's just not very good, and this is it. That's why its not doing as well as people would expect it to.
AoS failed because the rules are rubbish and contrary to RGW's narrative of late, rules matter. RGW (Rubbish Games Workshop) finaly made their intentions clear and showed their real attitude and as it turns out, people don't really want to plan, build and paint armies for months to play "casual" dead rubber games with simplistic and shallow rules.
Another thing is how the universe of AoS was created out of a creative spark but sadly one of a sales management team. A blatant jump at repeating space marines sales in fantasy, trademarkable names, grimdark exchanged for he-many heroics etc. It's also the reason for the lack of armies updates and overall boldness of the whole affair, they really believed that sigmarines were going to be a smashing succes and would carry AoS for months, drooling wide eyed kids and old nerds alike blinded by shiny gold ride-the-lighting awesome superawesome.
Also the fact that whfb was rank and file and the massive jump to KoW shows that many people loved that about it. It's funny btw how rank and file fantasy gaming was synonymous with warhammer for so long and they just gave it away like that, some brand recognition to kill heh and takes quite a moron to do imo.
What they should do is 9th edition titled "Tales in the world that is about to blow, soon" or sth and write rules to play in the dead world, they could even add factions still etc. Or just offer 8th edition, all the army books and square bases and support whfb alongside AoS, release new models with rules for both systems like bloodthirster has for both 40k and fantasy. That way they would have incoming Total War players covered who will be legion and anyone who decided that it was a good moment for AoS is again, a moron sadly. No need to thank me GW, I'll just take a good balanced ruleset in return.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/29 10:26:47
Torga_DW wrote: I pretty much agree, but to every sentence there, my response is: you would think, wouldn't you? GW is to blame for the lackluster launch/performance, simple as that (who else cold it be). You would think, wouldn't you? They made the product and must have had some plan besides "we make it and they will buy it". You would think, wouldn't you? But i'm not so certain. I remember reading somewhere (i forget where) that AoS was being marketed to some retailers as a chance to get rid of the bitter vets that were ruining the hobby and get new customers in. You would hope they had a plan beyond "we make it and they will buy it" but i'm not seeing any signs of it. GW doesn't really do advertising (possibly excepting the uk with their highstreet presence), how do they expect new customers to even know it exists, let alone be tempting into playing/collecting? Wasn't that a kevin costner movie - if you build it, they will come?
One could argue: how do most people get into the miniature wargaming hobby? How do people get into building and painting models? In my experience, it's not because they've seen an advertisement in a magazine, online, on television, in a movie theatre, and so forth. There are people who are drawn to the hobby of miniatures and models and miniature wargames, and they end up going to hobby shops, where they look at stuff on shelves, and perhaps buy things.
Since it's a pretty small niche, the well-stocked independent stores basically sell all the most popular stuff (and the GW stores obviously sell GW things). So the equation, I think, is more like, "If you build it, and they like it, they will seek you out and buy it."
Something to bear in mind, though - for every customer that comes in on their own there are four or five that are brought in by the vets that GW is merrily ticking off.
I got into the hobby when I was an Adolescent Grump - brought in by a Catholic priest who introduced me to wargaming, miniatures gaming, role playing games, and the wonders of the Roneograph machine. (I produced a D&D fanzine when I was twelve years old... that priest has much to answer for. (I wish that I still had a copy.) )
Without that priest... I have no idea what my hobbies would have been. Wargaming seems very unlikely. Roleplaying games... maybe a bit more likely, since I was reading Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine at that time, and there were advertisements for D&D by a bookstore names A Change of Hobbit (through whom I ordered my very first copy of the beige book D&D).
Without people making the hobby sound interesting and entertaining, it is likely that the pool of players would not be large enough to sustain.
When you take a company like GW, that relies entirely on word of mouth advertising then ticking off the grognards is akin to shooting yourself in the foot, just before the race starts.
As for other forms of advertising - my good lady became a fantasy gamer when her age was in the single digits - because she and her mum saw HeroQuest advertised on TV.
For her mum it was a boardgame, for Megan it was the start of a lifelong hobby.
Jon & Julie, two of my players, got into gaming because they saw a commercial for Basic Dungeons & Dragons on TV.
For them it was the start to a whole pile of hobbies (the one that costs them the most money involves dressing up in armor, and hitting people with padded rattan weapons - they are members of the SCA, but they both have armies that used to be for Warhammer, and are now being used for Kings of War).
Both forms of advertising interweave - Jon & Julie have brought other people into gaming (and the SCA) by word of mouth, but heard of it from the telly.
Megan works in a bookstore - and her being able to talk to gamers about D&D and Pathfinder helps drive sales, and can help push folks off of the fence, and into the wide open pastures of gaming. (How is that for a tortured metaphor?)
But she was brought in by commercials for HeroQuest.
Saying that advertising does not account for most players is true - but those gamers that it does bring in can bring in others.
The Auld Grump
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
It seems to be quite popular at my FLGS in SoCal. From what the store owner has told me, the people playing it largely aren't the WHFB vets. But there's a good-sized group playing, and they're playing consistently. And while I haven't looked too closely, they appear to be largely using the new figures. I saw one of the players looking at the Dark Elf listings on GW's site with interest the other day, so it's likely that they'll branch out before long.
I can't offer anything besides anecdote, but I've not seen any indication of the game failing in my local area. The local player base seems to have embraced it and even a number of the naysayers I did know have been won over. Tournaments have been run locally and my local gaming club is still dominated by the game.
I've even seen the game being played in my local GW and I've not seen a game of anything besides 40k being played in a GW in a good 5 years.
I can't comment as the game itself, I've not played it and I've no plans to. I'm far to bogged down with other games to even contemplate it, I'm just reporting my observations.
"And if we've learnt anything over the past 1000 mile retreat it's that Russian agriculture is in dire need of mechanisation!"
Nah, the real reason was to give Kirby an excuse to quote Oppenheimer....
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* Flickr hates Dakka....
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/29 18:34:31
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
When you take a company like GW, that relies entirely on word of mouth advertising
Not so in the UK, over here that is probably quite minor part of GW advertising. There is a store in pretty much every town. Whilst I can't say how much is word of mouth and how much is stores in town centers pulling kids in compared to other ways in, it certainly isn't anywhere near entirely word or mouth.
When you take a company like GW, that relies entirely on word of mouth advertising
Not so in the UK, over here that is probably quite minor part of GW advertising. There is a store in pretty much every town. Whilst I can't say how much is word of mouth and how much is stores in town centers pulling kids in compared to other ways in, it certainly isn't anywhere near entirely word or mouth.
In Germany, there are small store in almost all large cities (at least 200,000 to 300,000 citizens), but the brand Warhammer is largely unknown.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/29 18:59:07
Former moderator 40kOnline
Lanchester's square law - please obey in list building!
Illumini: "And thank you for not finishing your post with a "" I'm sorry, but after 7200 's that has to be the most annoying sign-off ever."
When you take a company like GW, that relies entirely on word of mouth advertising
Not so in the UK, over here that is probably quite minor part of GW advertising. There is a store in pretty much every town. Whilst I can't say how much is word of mouth and how much is stores in town centers pulling kids in compared to other ways in, it certainly isn't anywhere near entirely word or mouth.
It is, however, also not paid advertising in public outlets.
And that highstreet presence is disappearing.
Not to mention, the whole stores issue may be a big chunk of why GW is not doing as well as it might.
Despite losing as much as 30% in some locations, by changing to cheaper, 1 man' operations... GW claims that the stores have become profitable.
An improvement while losing 30% of your base is not the sign of a successful commercial operation.
The Auld Grump
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
When you take a company like GW, that relies entirely on word of mouth advertising
Not so in the UK, over here that is probably quite minor part of GW advertising. There is a store in pretty much every town. Whilst I can't say how much is word of mouth and how much is stores in town centers pulling kids in compared to other ways in, it certainly isn't anywhere near entirely word or mouth.
That's not really true. Every GW I've ever seen has been tucked out of the way somewhere and I've had to seek it out. My most local is situated well outside the area where people will typically shop (the main shoppers car parks are closer to the town centre than the store,) the next closest was tucked away in a side street, then when that side street became part of a massive and expensive redevelopment, they moved to somewhere you'd yet again need to normally make a special trip to, or have some other spurious reason to pass.
Not to mention most are very small units with narrow frontages, something that isn't conducive to catching the eye and luring people in. If the intent behind the shops is to drive in footfall and convert the ignorant, they're really not doing a very good job of it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if many GW locations actively drive casual custom away if there's some sort of event on, I've intended to go into mine on more than one occasion, seen a collection of wispy beards and black t shirts all crowded in cheek by jowl and kept walking, and I'm neither the sort of character that's intimidated by that sort of thing nor someone new to or interested in the hobby and consequently perhaps a bit tentative. If I can't be bothered to elbow my way around one of the broom cupboards that seems to represent the typical GW shop for a lot of paint, you can bet there's others who definitely wouldn't to spend time browsing and making a large purchase.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Bottle wrote: ^ in the UK they are on the high street in good locations usually.
No, they were on high streets and in good locations.
They have been moving out of the good locations, and opening on back streets for a few years now.
Read the financial reports - they are actually quite open about this. (And those reports are also where I got my 30% loss of sales figure.)
The Auld Grump
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
).
" I'm sorry, but after 7200 's that has to be the most annoying sign-off ever." 
Or your retailers.
