How is AoS doing and why?

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**Mymearan**

Actually 550 would be enough to draw some conclusions... If it was a random sample taken from the entire gaming population. As is its enough to draw conclusions about the games perceived popularity among dakka users who read the AoS forum.

**Manchu**

RiTides wrote:
In the end, I know I'm not going to move the needle with you guys

To level with you, this comes across as extremely passive aggressive implication that people who disagree with you cannot be reasoned with.

RiTides wrote:
I just think we need to be honest - there are tons more people posting about how AoS is struggling in their area on Dakka

Well I posted this earlier today:

Manchu wrote:
We can conclude that AoS is doing poorly with people who post on Dakka about not liking it.

And I think that is the sum of what has been shown here. My learned friend expresses the sentiment better:

Mymearan wrote:
As is its enough to draw conclusions about the games perceived popularity among dakka users who read the AoS forum.

**Spinner**

DrNo172000 wrote:
Spinner wrote:
judgedoug wrote:
Spinner wrote:
Seemed to me he reported a lack of interest in people buying it about the time other people reported it. There was general enthusiasm (mixed in with all the other emotions generated by Age of Sigmar) for the starter set - not that I can really understand why, to be fair - and then a whole lot of 'meh' and 'really? They're called boltstormers'?

If I walked into my FLGS and drno172000 was badmouthing a miniatures game and literally crying about how awful it was and it was going to ruin my business, I would certainly not have any enthusiasm to purchase the product (and would have burst out laughing). and then if the same person a few weeks later was like "no trust me it's actually not bad!" I would immediately recall the hysterics and decline (and then burst out laughing again)

I probably would too, but I don't remember mikhaila crying in front of customers about how AoS was going to ruin his business. I remember him being upset on here about the direction GW had chosen to go - and he's hardly alone in that. I remember him being frustrated with the way GW was treating him as a store owner. Hard to fault him for that. And I remember him trying to give it a fair chance when he thought it might sell and prove popular. It didn't. If he was an isolated case, you might be able to say 'well, he wasn't trying hard enough', but he's clearly not.

So either all these store owners are the Comic Book Guy or the game just isn't very popular. I haven't heard store owners getting flak for not being able to sell Dreadfleet...

Do you imagine not a single one of his customers frequents Dakka? Do you shop there, and have evidence this attitude did not carry into conversations with customers in store?

I don't, actually. Do you or judgedoug?

**judgedoug**

Spinner wrote:
I don't, actually. Do you or judgedoug?

It's not a leap of faith to assume that the way a person talks to people is the way a person talks to people.

**Spinner**

judgedoug wrote:
Spinner wrote:
I don't, actually. Do you or judgedoug?

It's not a leap of faith to assume that the way a person talks to people is the way a person talks to people.

God, I hope people don't talk to people the way they post on internet forums.

**RiTides**

I have been to mikahaila's stores a bunch of times (although not recently unfortunately). What he posts on a forum like Dakka is just his frank thoughts, it has nothing to do with how he sells the game. He certainly wasn't "crying" in front of his customers... instead, I'm sure he was his usual self - an extremely shrewd businessman who enthusiastically gets people into new game systems and is an incredible salesman.

That's part of what got my blood boiling here - acting as if he or other store owners struggling to sell the game are the problem (or the gamers themselves, etc). That said, I think I got a little too heated so apologize for that

. Cheers for the lively discussion, Manchu / judgedoug / others! It is definitely valuable to see an opposing viewpoint, especially when you're willing to post it even though it isn't the popular one here.

**Manchu**

Well my intent is not to run mikhaila down. But the assumption that if he can't sell it then it is a failure by implication runs other store owners and staff down, too. Plus it is just a bad argument. Mikhaila's customers are probably not a random sampling of the general population, after all. The guy had managed to cultivate a WHFB community when very few others were having any success there. But AoS made having that customer base a liability rather than an asset. Since we're talking about the guy's livelihood as well as decades of emotional investment in the IPs we can understand his reaction. But his reaction also lets us understand something about his viewpoint about AoS.

**DrNo172000**

Spinner wrote:
DrNo172000 wrote:
Spinner wrote:
judgedoug wrote:
Spinner wrote:
Seemed to me he reported a lack of interest in people buying it about the time other people reported it. There was general enthusiasm (mixed in with all the other emotions generated by Age of Sigmar) for the starter set - not that I can really understand why, to be fair - and then a whole lot of 'meh' and 'really? They're called boltstormers'?

If I walked into my FLGS and drno172000 was badmouthing a miniatures game and literally crying about how awful it was and it was going to ruin my business, I would certainly not have any enthusiasm to purchase the product (and would have burst out laughing). and then if the same person a few weeks later was like "no trust me it's actually not bad!" I would immediately recall the hysterics and decline (and then burst out laughing again)

I probably would too, but I don't remember mikhaila crying in front of customers about how AoS was going to ruin his business. I remember him being upset on here about the direction GW had chosen to go - and he's hardly alone in that. I remember him being frustrated with the way GW was treating him as a store owner. Hard to fault him for that. And I remember him trying to give it a fair chance when he thought it might sell and prove popular. It didn't. If he was an isolated case, you might be able to say 'well, he wasn't trying hard enough', but he's clearly not.

So either all these store owners are the Comic Book Guy or the game just isn't very popular. I haven't heard store owners getting flak for not being able to sell Dreadfleet...

Do you imagine not a single one of his customers frequents Dakka? Do you shop there, and have evidence this attitude did not carry into conversations with customers in store?

I don't, actually. Do you or judgedoug?

I don't but I can imagine there is a strong chance he has customers that do frequent Dakka. There is also a strong chance that he did carry that attitude over. Bashing a product you are about to sell in any way be it internet forum or in person is completely unprofessional. Just think if an franchise owner of a phone store ran around saying the new iPhone was a complete turd and it had him in tears. You will never hear me state whether or not I think AoS, WM/H, Infinity, Gates of Antares, Bolt Action, Battlegroup Kursk, Chain of Command is garbage on a internet forum or in my store. Some of those games I don't even carry.

**RiTides**

Yeah, that's all - I would prefer not to "run him down"!

Also, by "move the needle" I simply meant, you've expressed that the evidence we have isn't sufficient in your mind to draw any conclusion from, so there really isn't any way to do that (didn't mean it in the way I think it came across to you).

I'm happy to agree to disagree on what can be drawn from the evidence available online - but just couldn't imagine that you disagree that that evidence is overwhelmingly negative. I see that you acknowledge that now, so yeah, no worries

**DrNo172000**

RiTides wrote:
I have been to mikahaila's stores a bunch of times (although not recently unfortunately). What he posts on a forum like Dakka is just his frank thoughts, it has nothing to do with how he sells the game. He certainly wasn't "crying" in front of his customers... instead, I'm sure he was his usual self - an extremely shrewd businessman who enthusiastically gets people into new game systems and is an incredible salesman.

That's part of what got my blood boiling here - acting as if he or other store owners struggling to sell the game are the problem (or the gamers themselves, etc). That said, I think I got a little too heated so apologize for that . Cheers for the lively discussion, Manchu / judgedoug / others! It is definitely valuable to see an opposing viewpoint, especially when you're willing to post it even though it isn't the popular one here.

Here's the thing if you fail to sale a product it is the absolute failure of the business. That's the way it works, you are responsible. SAGA failed when I brought it in, it's not the games fault. I failed to understand my customer base properly and I paid for it. That was a misstep on my ability as a sales manager. Further even giving your frank opinion on an internet forum about a product you intend to carry is unprofessional. It's not about whether this person is a nice guy or not. If AoS didn't do well for him, perhaps he didn't qualify his customer base properly. We have a very casual 40k community, are players are not tournament players. I knew this and I surmised by that metric that AoS would do well I was not wrong.

The real main point here and why I jumped in with what is essentially a troll post is this thread is pointless because no one has access to enough metrics to declare AoS a success or failure.

**Manchu**

There are plenty of reasons a product line might not do well for a particular store. I tend to think it has less to do with the owner/staff only and more to do with the community that has evolved at that store. If there is already a strong focus on pick-up gaming at a store, it will be hard to sell AoS to that community because AoS is pretty weak on pick-up gaming. It's not to say that the owner or staff or customers did anything wrong. In fact, for 40k and WHFB that is exactly the kind of community a LGS wants to cultivate and has been for a long time. This is why AoS taking such a radical turn away from that is such a big deal.

**DrNo172000**

Mymearan wrote:
Actually 550 would be enough to draw some conclusions... If it was a random sample taken from the entire gaming population. As is its enough to draw conclusions about the games perceived popularity among dakka users who read the AoS forum.

It is not enough to draw a strong conclusion on the health of AoS. The thread is not titled is AoS a failure amongst Dakka users though. The title and many of the post imply that because AoS is unpopular on Dakka it is in the greater market as well. Dakka is not the market.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

DrNo172000 wrote:
Mymearan wrote:
Actually 550 would be enough to draw some conclusions... If it was a random sample taken from the entire gaming population. As is its enough to draw conclusions about the games perceived popularity among dakka users who read the AoS forum.

It is not enough to draw a strong conclusion on the health of AoS. The thread is not titled is AoS a failure amongst Dakka users though. The title and many of the post imply that AoS because AoS is unpopular on Dakka it is in the greater market as well. Dakka is not the market.

I would disagree Manchu, the owner and any staff responsible for bringing in product lines are at fault. That's not to say it's a bad mark on them as a person. They simply failed to qualify their consumer base, even I have made this mistake which is why I gave the SAGA example.

**Manchu**

Well as a someone who gets paid to do that successfully, I understand why you take a hard line on the issue of responsibility. I just want to qualify that this was a tectonic change and store owners who had been doing what was right for selling WHFB were unknowingly creating a customer base potentially hostile to what GW had secretly planned for AoS.

**OgreChubbs**

I hear people complaining about how all store owners are selling thousands of models at half price, well after three months of looking I found nothing more then about five percent off.

So if GW has tenthousands stores stocked in canada and three are on here saying it is doing bad thats what nine thousands nine hundred ninetynine doing good? Btw of course online stores are failing Gw said no more selling out of country so there goes the aussies and canadians. I got a easyer time getting things from russia and ukrain then u.k. Us. And the shipping is cheaper.

**Torga_DW**

It helps to keep in mind that there was no 'substantial evidence' that WHF was failing either, until it turned out it was. I think that's the point of this thread - to go through what we knew then and know now and see what can be inferred. I think i read in the last couple pages that end times was well received and universally acclaimed - except that revenue went down while it was being released. Anecdotal evidence is all we have for the most part, and it's certainly not 100% reliable, but that doesn't automatically mean that it's wrong either.

**Azreal13**

I don't think people often complain about stores selling stuff half price!

I'm not sure there's 10,000 stores in Canada either...

**Manchu**

Torga_DW wrote:
It helps to keep in mind that there was no 'substantial evidence' that WHF was failing either, until it turned out it was.

The bigger point there is, it's GW who decides what "failing" means rather than us. For people who liked Eighth and managed to get regular games in, I'm sure the game wasn't a failure. For stores like mikhaila's, where there was a viable community for it thanks to hard work, it wasn't a failure.

**the_Armyman**

DrNo172000 wrote:
RiTides wrote:
I have been to mikahaila's stores a bunch of times (although not recently unfortunately). What he posts on a forum like Dakka is just his frank thoughts, it has nothing to do with how he sells the game. He certainly wasn't "crying" in front of his customers... instead, I'm sure he was his usual self - an extremely shrewd businessman who enthusiastically gets people into new game systems and is an incredible salesman.

That's part of what got my blood boiling here - acting as if he or other store owners struggling to sell the game are the problem (or the gamers themselves, etc). That said, I think I got a little too heated so apologize for that . Cheers for the lively discussion, Manchu / judgedoug / others! It is definitely valuable to see an opposing viewpoint, especially when you're willing to post it even though it isn't the popular one here.

Here's the thing if you fail to sale a product it is the absolute failure of the business. That's the way it works, you are responsible. SAGA failed when I brought it in, it's not the games fault. I failed to understand my customer base properly and I paid for it. That was a misstep on my ability as a sales manager. Further even giving your frank opinion on an internet forum about a product you intend to carry is unprofessional. It's not about whether this person is a nice guy or not. If AoS didn't do well for him, perhaps he didn't qualify his customer base properly. We have a very casual 40k community, are players are not tournament players. I knew this and I surmised by that metric that AoS would do well I was not wrong.

The real main point here and why I jumped in with what is essentially a troll post is this thread is pointless because no one has access to enough metrics to declare AoS a success or failure.

You say you're a Sales Manager, correct? So, do you own the store or work for the owner? Sounds like you've got everything figured out, though. Maybe some day, you'll own a store of your own, and then you can set the world on fire selling AoS.

I'm not a friend of mikhaila's, and I've never been to his store. But I do think it's a bit shameful that some of you have been permitted to speak as though you know exactly how he runs his business, or in fact, find humor in his misfortune. A guy who loves the hobby, been in the business for around 35 years, and OWNS two successful store locations deserves some respect.

I'm pretty sure I know why mikhaila hasn't responded to any of this nonsense: he's busy being successful, not mocking others who lack his chops.

**Torga_DW**

Manchu wrote:
Torga_DW wrote:
It helps to keep in mind that there was no 'substantial evidence' that WHF was failing either, until it turned out it was.
The bigger point there is, it's GW who decides what "failing" means rather than us. For people who liked Eighth and managed to get regular games in, I'm sure the game wasn't a failure. For stores like mikhaila's, where there was a viable community for it thanks to hard work, it wasn't a failure.

True, gw decides if the product line is failing or not. But they'll have their own definition of failure, and we can speculate as to what that may be and how close/far they are from it. Its not a question of "did some people like eighth?" its a question of "did enough people support eight?" and the answer seems to have been: no.

**Manchu**

@the_Armyman

That would be a strawman; indeed, the post you quoted explicitly describes business rather than personal criticism.

@Torga_DW

Agree, it is just speculation. Maybe the GW metric for AoS success is, we need our second line to do better than WHFB 8E. But I doubt it is, we need AoS to outsell 40k or sell to existing 40k players. all speculation either way and not really helpful at all. Oh another similar point is, we don't even actually know if GW considers Eighth a failure -- maybe it did exactly what GW wanted it to, for example keep WHFB coasting along until they have the resources and plans to execute on End Times in preparation for AoS.

**TheAuldGrump**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Dr. Delorean wrote:I don't get the 'they were too lazy to give points' argument, since surely if they were lazy they would've just done nothing.
They wanted to make money (which is fine), and they wanted to revitalise a brand that was withering on the vine. And, I suspect, they had to be quick about it. Hence 4 pages of rules.

Manchu wrote:
Well it's pure ad hominem so entirely safe to ignore.
No it's not. Replace laziness then with 'path of least resistance'. I'd even wager that the people writing the rules weren't given much time to do them, given how GW operates (models are decided upon, given to the rules guys and the rules guys are told how high to jump).

But I'm not going to get into an argument with you Manchu. I no longer have the stamina for that sort of thing. All I want is proof that AoS is failing, 'cause right now I don't see any.

Writing rules is easy.

Balancing them is hard.

So, GW has decided not to bother, and just done the easy part.

The Auld Grump

**Manchu**

TheAuldGrump wrote:
GW has decided not to bother, and just done the easy part.

Pretty cunning stuff. I mean, let's say it costs more to do something that is hard than it does to do something that is easy. And let's say, just for the sake of argument, that GW invested in trying to balance WHFB 8E but not AoS. Let's further assume AoS is projected to do better sales in a similar time frame than WHFB 8E. Cutting costs, increasing revenues. Sounds good.

**DrNo172000**

the_Armyman wrote:
DrNo172000 wrote:
RiTides wrote:
I have been to mikahaila's stores a bunch of times (although not recently unfortunately). What he posts on a forum like Dakka is just his frank thoughts, it has nothing to do with how he sells the game. He certainly wasn't "crying" in front of his customers... instead, I'm sure he was his usual self - an extremely shrewd businessman who enthusiastically gets people into new game systems and is an incredible salesman.

That's part of what got my blood boiling here - acting as if he or other store owners struggling to sell the game are the problem (or the gamers themselves, etc). That said, I think I got a little too heated so apologize for that . Cheers for the lively discussion, Manchu / judgedoug / others! It is definitely valuable to see an opposing viewpoint, especially when you're willing to post it even though it isn't the popular one here.

Here's the thing if you fail to sale a product it is the absolute failure of the business. That's the way it works, you are responsible. SAGA failed when I brought it in, it's not the games fault. I failed to understand my customer base properly and I paid for it. That was a misstep on my ability as a sales manager. Further even giving your frank opinion on an internet forum about a product you intend to carry is unprofessional. It's not about whether this person is a nice guy or not. If AoS didn't do well for him, perhaps he didn't qualify his customer base properly. We have a very casual 40k community, are players are not tournament players. I knew this and I surmised by that metric that AoS would do well I was not wrong.

The real main point here and why I jumped in with what is essentially a troll post is this thread is pointless because no one has access to enough metrics to declare AoS a success or failure.

You say you're a Sales Manager, correct? So, do you own the store or work for the owner? Sounds like you've got everything figured out, though. Maybe some day, you'll own a store of your own, and then you can set the world on fire selling AoS.

I'm not a friend of mikhaila's, and I've never been to his store. But I do think it's a bit shameful that some of you have been permitted to speak as though you know exactly how he runs his business, or in fact, find humor in his misfortune. A guy who loves the hobby, been in the business for around 35 years, and OWNS two successful store locations deserves some respect.

I'm pretty sure I know why mikhaila hasn't responded to any of this nonsense: he's busy being successful, not mocking others who lack his chops.

Of course I've got it figured out. I'm a former Marine rifleman. The Corps turns us into infallible killing machines. Whether it's killing bad guys or killing sales numbers.

**the_Armyman**

judgedoug wrote:
Manchu wrote:
You have to keep in mind that the AoS launch devastated his morale to the point that he logged on to Dakka and confessed to breaking down and crying. He also immediately started offering the starter box at a significant discount on the swap shop here, reflecting his lack of confidence in the product.

That gets my vote for the Best of Dakka 2015. It was very hilarious and very, very sad. I lost count of how many people I told about that.

DrNo172000 wrote:You want to know why it's failing at these stores. Because most hobby store owners with a few exceptions aren't businessmen. They don't have the professional selling skills to sell water to a man stranded in the Sahara. If all you do is come on the internet and bash a game, I bet that's all you do in your store too. That's a surefire recipe for success. I mean promotion and qualifying customers, whoever heard of that. In reality it's no coincidence that AoS did spectacular at my store, I've sold more copies of that then the store did of Dark Vengeance in it's entire existence. Simply because when I took over as sales manager (right around the time AoS came out) I instituted a no trash talk policy, used promotion, and identified the customers who AoS would be the best fit for. Now my competition down the street sold less than 20, but they constantly bad mouth the game.

No the reason any of the stores is even still in business is because they started in a vacuum and never had real competition. Well guess what, the legion of Grognard loyalists is shrinking and these musty old brick and mortars will eventually be run out by stores like Miniature Market.

Meanwhile I'll keep selling games that I don't like or don't play, because there is a customer out there that wants it.

Manchu wrote:@the_Armyman

That would be a strawman; indeed, the post you quoted explicitly describes business rather than personal criticism.

Failing to see the strawman based upon the two quoted Dakka members. I only quoted drno's most recent post, because I couldn't originally be arsed to track down his first comment.

**Manchu**

the_Armyman wrote:
only quoted drno's most recent post, because I couldn't originally be arsed to track down his first comment.

Thanks for clarifying although I think DrNo172000 is trying to get at a business criticism in both of the posts you mention.

**Torga_DW**

Manchu wrote:
@Torga_DW

Agree, it is just speculation. Maybe the GW metric for AoS success is, we need our second line to do better than WHFB 8E. But I doubt it is, we need AoS to outsell 40k or sell to existing 40k players. all speculation either way and not really helpful at all. Oh another similar point is, we don't even actually know if GW considers Eighth a failure -- maybe it did exactly what GW wanted it to, for example keep WHFB coasting along until they have the resources and plans to execute on End Times in preparation for AoS.

Which brings us to the question: is AoS doing better than 8th? Which is related to the topic, is AoS failing? The rumours that kicked off the end of fantasy suggested that it was selling extremely poorly compared to 40k, which was the catalyst for removing it. I don't think anyone here is suggesting it should sell as well as 40k does (relatively speaking), but gw seems to be funny about things like that. I think it's more likely that if it was performing as they wanted it to, they would have continued their 'periodic reboot' system for it and wouldn't have replaced it. Looking at the divided playerbase that was created, and the general impression online, i think it's a fair call to say it may be failing.

**Manchu**

Torga_DW wrote:
Looking at the divided playerbase that was created, and the general impression online, i think it's a fair call to say it may be failing.

Think of it this way, if we assume that the WHFB 8E player base was so small that GW considered the underlying product line a failure then why should GW (or anyone else for that matter) care whether that player base thinks AoS is a failure? It is just as fair to speculate that the business insight was, look making product for these guys is not making us money and there is no reason to believe that it ever will so let's find a new kind of customer, probably someone who cares less about intricate rules (which are expensive to make and which we may just not be good at making) and cares more about our toys (which we are very good at making). So if we're going to ask the group of people that GW basically turned its back on, hey do you guys like this product that totally broke with what you like, we can't be surprised to hear them say, no that product sucks. That's one insight, that we already know the answer to that question when we put it to those folks. The other insight is, those folks not liking AoS may have actually nothing at all to do with how it sells since they are not the target customers.

**the_Armyman**

Manchu wrote:
the_Armyman wrote:
only quoted drno's most recent post, because I couldn't originally be arsed to track down his first comment.

Thanks for clarifying although I think DrNo172000 is trying to get at a business criticism in both of the posts you mention.

I think you're splitting some awfully thin hairs, Manchu. Judgedoug has a little chuckle at mikhaila, then his buddy comes into the discussion shortly after telling us about why businessmen in this line of work fail. I've said my peace, I just don't like to see people run down.

**Manchu**

the_Armyman wrote:
I think you're splitting some awfully thin hairs, Manchu. Judgedoug has a little chuckle at mikhaila, then his buddy comes into the discussion shortly after telling us about why businessmen in this line of work fail. I've said my peace, I just don't like to see people run down.

Full disclosure, both of those guys are my IRL buddies so I read their posts a bit differently, knowing their personalities. But as for running people down, again, for me I just want people to keep in mind that we can't keep pulling the old appeal to authority trick on mikhalia's posts. His experience is from a particular set of circumstances and POV that, to my mind, does not seem like a recipe for success with AoS. As DrNo172000 said, his store (our LGS) had a very casual 40k scene and very little WHFB scene at all. So the prejudice against AoS out of the box that other store owners and staff experienced were not as big of a factor at our LGS.

**Torga_DW**

Manchu wrote:
Torga_DW wrote:
Looking at the divided playerbase that was created, and the general impression online, i think it's a fair call to say it may be failing.
Think of it this way, if we assume that the WHFB 8E player base was so small that GW considered the underlying product line a failure then why should GW (or anyone else for that matter) care whether that player base thinks AoS is a failure? It is just as fair to speculate that the business insight was, look making product for these guys is not making us money and there is no reason to believe that it ever will so let's find a new kind of customer, probably someone who cares less about intricate rules (which are expensive to make and which we may just not be good at making) and cares more about our toys (which we are very good at making). So if we're going to ask the group of people that GW basically turned its back on, hey do you guys like this product that totally broke with what you like, we can't be surprised to hear them say, no that product sucks. That's one insight, that we already know the answer to that question when we put it to those folks. The other insight is, those folks not liking AoS may have actually nothing at all to do with how it sells since they are not the target customers.

I agree with what you're saying in theory, but if the old product was removed because it wasn't making enough money, then presumably the new product can also potentially be removed for not making enough money. It very well may be an attempt to focus on the models and not the rules (from what i've read in their annual reports i think that's highly likely), but the question then becomes: will their new demographic perform better or worse than the old one? And the problem here is that it's hard to tell if they even have a target demographic for anything beyond "people who like giving us lots of money". This is where market research is important.