Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Peregrine wrote:
Online stores in the US are parasites leeching off the hard work done by physical stores, and getting rid of them is good for the community.

Yes, that was the argument made by Mark Wells, as well. If you aren't providing gaming space, you're a parasite.

The irony of this statement being released at the same time as GW was busily downsizing their stores and removing gaming space provided some amusement.

The simple fact is that even in the US, there are a lot of people who don't play in stores, and/or don't have easy access to them. So getting rid of online stores is only good for those parts of the community that are interested in supporting local stores and actually have one to support.

But physical stores can't compete with online discount stores on price. They have to pay higher rent costs, more employee salaries, etc. The only way for the physical store to compete, outside of depending on people making charity donations out of a sense of obligation to support their local businesses, is to limit the amount of sales volume the online stores can have as much as possible.

And yet the largest online sellers here in Oz also have physical stores. Wayland games. Some of the biggest sellers in the UK are, and always have had, physical stores.

It's not that physical stores can't compete. They simply choose not to. That choice may be made because they can't afford it due to their business model... but that's still a choice.

A manufacturer prohibiting online sales removes that choice. Now, the physical store simply doesn't have that option, regardless of whether or not they could come up with a way (as some do) to make it work.


Restricting how a store can sell your product doesn't help the store. It just puts more hurdles in the way of them providing people with a product.

 Peregrine wrote:
Online stores in the US are parasites leeching off the hard work done by physical stores

Alternatively, they are a boon for us rural folk without a LGS and the only way to get miniatures without having to drive a 6 hour round trip.

 warboss wrote:
Do they sell direct to consumers? Yes (as you said above with a strange distinction). Do they sell direct to retailers? Yes. Are they limiting their distributors AND disallowing online sales at a penalty of losing access to their products? Yes. Those moves are exactly from GW's playbook 10 years ago and the next step will be to cut out distributors completely. Those moves are designed to increase their own profits and control over their products, not to benefit FLGS except as a potential side effect (and of course at the definite detriment of any FLGS that sells online as well). The "spin" is otherwise of course. I hold all companies to the same standards (with some exceptions for truely small companies) and if GW doesn't get a pass on those then neither should FFG when they do the exact same thing using the exact same pretense. Have those moves ultimately "helped" local stores when GW did them? No, they didn't. They did temporarily help GW though. The only difference is that FFG doesn't have a chain or retail stores or at least public plans for them so I suspect we'll likely see a not so gentle and steady push towards buying direct from them (both retailers and consumers).

Except the GW analogy breaks down for two reasons:

1) FFG doesn't have a significant direct sales volume. Technically you can buy from their very basic online store, but it's more of a "if you can't find it anywhere else" option and I don't know anyone who has ever bought anything from FFG directly. And speculating about what they might do someday if they're as bad as GW is just not a reasonable thing to do. As of now this is doing nothing to boost FFG's profits directly.

2) FFG hasn't shown any sign of GW-style exclusive products that you can only buy directly. That's what hurts physical stores the most, not the existence of GW's website. And speculating that FFG is going to move half of their product lines to their own store and cut out everyone else is tinfoil hat speculation, nothing more.

And let's be honest here, GW has a point about killing off online discount stores. They're parasites that provide nothing of value while hurting the people who support and promote GW's games. Their loss will not be mourned.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alex C wrote:
Alternatively, they are a boon for us rural folk without a LGS and the only way to get miniatures without having to drive a 6 hour round trip.

I suspect that people who live more three hours from their closest store are a very small minority in the US.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
Yes, that was the argument made by Mark Wells, as well. If you aren't providing gaming space, you're a parasite.

Exactly. It was a true argument back then, even if GW ignored it with their own stores. If you aren't providing gaming space, or at least a physical store that can attract new customers, you're a parasite and should be driven out of business.

The simple fact is that even in the US, there are a lot of people who don't play in stores, and/or don't have easy access to them. So getting rid of online stores is only good for those parts of the community that are interested in supporting local stores and actually have one to support.

But how many of those people would be playing those games without a store to build a community for them? Take away physical stores in the US and you probably lose 90% of the gaming community, if not more. So that's a pretty good reason to err on the side of protecting those physical stores.

It's not that physical stores can't compete. They simply choose not to.

In the US it's largely a "can't". A store that tried to compete with online discount prices would be lucky if they manage to break even, and would probably lose money on every sale.

 Peregrine wrote:
And let's be honest here, GW has a point about killing off online discount stores. They're parasites that provide nothing of value while hurting the people who support and promote GW's games. Their loss will not be mourned.

Here's the thing - When I first bought 40K, there was no local games store. I bought the 2nd edition starter set through mail order (and yes, at a discount).

There was no local games store 'supporting and promoting' GW's games. If I hadn't had access to a store that could sell me product without me having to set foot in the store, I wouldn't have bought that game... because I would have had no way to buy that game.


As for 'providing nothing of value', one of the biggest online-only sellers here in Oz is also one of the biggest supporters of local cons and tournies. They send god-knows-how-much product out into the community every year, helping those events to grow. They're not alone in that... plenty of online sellers support events. Hell, back when they were still a going concern, Maelstrom Games offered to single-handedly fund a fledging gaming convention here in Oz, in exchange for advertising.

The 'nothing of value' argument simply doesn't bear up under scrutiny. Online sellers don't provide gaming space (but then, neither do an awful lot of physical stores), but a lot of them provide quite significant support and value to the community.

 BrookM wrote:
First they cancel almost all of their 40K RPG lines and now this...

Got a link to that announcement?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Alternatively, they are a boon for us rural folk without a LGS and the only way to get miniatures without having to drive a 6 hour round trip.

I suspect that people who live more three hours from their closest store are a very small minority in the US.

So feth us guys then, right?

For someone so concerned with building gaming communities, you seem awfully zealous about removing the only reasonable avenue of acquiring hobby stuff for rural gamers.

Retail in general is moving to online discounters, it's not just the gaming market. Any company that thinks it can fight this trend is frankly arrogant and stupid.

 Peregrine wrote:


Except the GW analogy breaks down for two reasons:

1) FFG doesn't have a significant direct sales volume. Technically you can buy from their very basic online store, but it's more of a "if you can't find it anywhere else" option and I don't know anyone who has ever bought anything from FFG directly. And speculating about what they might do someday if they're as bad as GW is just not a reasonable thing to do. As of now this is doing nothing to boost FFG's profits directly.

FFG doesn't have significant direct sales volume YET (an assumption btw). Do you want to know how they got that significant direct sales volume? They started by doing EXACTLY what Fantasy Flight is doing following in their footsteps with the same copy/paste spin as well.

2) FFG hasn't shown any sign of GW-style exclusive products that you can only buy directly. That's what hurts physical stores the most, not the existence of GW's website. And speculating that FFG is going to move half of their product lines to their own store and cut out everyone else is tinfoil hat speculation, nothing more.

FFG hasn't shown any sign of GW style exclusive products YET. There were years between the start of the douche moves on their part till they moved the majority of their product line into "direct" status. FFG is combining MULTIPLE douche GW moves into one so I expect the rest of the program to be accelerated as well.. but it is obviously not instant. Give them a few years to work up to it. The only difference I expect (beyond the accelerated timeline) will be that they won't ultimately open up their own brick and mortar stores.

 Peregrine wrote:
I suspect that people who live more three hours from their closest store are a very small minority in the US..

I suspect that people would need significant;y less than 3 hours travel each way before they consider a store to be too far away to be worth the bother.

 Alex C wrote:
Since I have no local game stores and don't attend conventions, I guess I won't be buying any more FFG product.

Unless MM/Warstore qualify under their exception.

Is that because you wouldn't buy FFG stuff at full MSRP regardless of who you bought it from---even if nobody sold it discounted?
Honestly curious.

As an Austrian, the sentiment that Online Stores are "parasites" that need to be killed off in order to protect the "community nurturing FLGS" always seemed nonsensical to me.
Why? Because around here, a FLGS is a shop that provides wares that you buy and then leave. Stores with gaming venues are the absolute exception, most of the stores simply do not have the space or the interest to provide gaming space.
There are currently three FLGS that I frequent in Vienna.
One of them provides space for gaming, but also has the highest prices. I rarely go there, because the stock doesn't match up with my interest and if it does, I usually have a cheaper option.
The second one also has high prices and provides a space for gaming that is, frankly, a complete joke. It's pretty much only an option for when I need something absolutely NOW and can't get it anywhere else.
The third one is a tiny shop that matches up perfectly with my tastes AND undercuts any other store in town. Heck, most of the time it also undercuts online retailers. It also provides no gaming space. The only difference to an online store is the fact that I can look at the boxes and take them with me when I decide to buy them, but other than that there's no difference to an online store. In the cases where buying online would be cheaper, I weigh the services the store provides ((looking at the boxes and taking them with me) against the savings and decide accordingly.
So, is the last store a parasite that needs to be shut down to protect the other two?

Personally, I don't think so.

privateer4hire wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Since I have no local game stores and don't attend conventions, I guess I won't be buying any more FFG product.

Unless MM/Warstore qualify under their exception.

Is that because you wouldn't buy FFG stuff at full MSRP regardless of who you bought it from---even if nobody sold it discounted?
Honestly curious.

Alex C mentioned in other posts how its about a 3 hour round trip for him to a FLGS.

---

At first I was in favor of this news when I heard about it on a friend's blog. He owns a brick and mortar which I used to frequent. This would be kind of good for him in that it would push more business for him. But Alex C reminded me that there are some folks... enough folks, in my opinion... that don't have easy access to a brick and mortar they can get stock from.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Retail in general is moving to online discounters, it's not just the gaming market. Any company that thinks it can fight this trend is frankly arrogant and stupid.

Indeed, and brick and mortar stores can compete by offering things other than simple discounts, such as workshops and on-hand expertise, as well as getting to handle the product before you buy.

Brick and mortar gaming stores can offer so many more services than an online store can, even if they can't necessarily match price, but they have to put the effort in. Unfortunately most gaming stores I've seen tend to have minimal stock, are hosting no events and are manned by a socially inept ape sat behind a desk not actively doing anything to sell product, rather just hoping that swarms of nerds will appear to fork over large amounts of cash for him to "order it, it'll be here in 2 weeks". If that's their idea of competing, no wonder they fail.

Absolutely no need for arbitrarily shutting down an entire avenue of acquiring merchandise just to favor another.

 insaniak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
I suspect that people who live more three hours from their closest store are a very small minority in the US..

I suspect that people would need significant;y less than 3 hours travel each way before they consider a store to be too far away to be worth the bother.

Exactly. I've seen people lamenting a 40-minute trip as being too far out of the way. That's my trip to work every morning.

 insaniak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
I suspect that people who live more three hours from their closest store are a very small minority in the US..

I suspect that people would need significant;y less than 3 hours travel each way before they consider a store to be too far away to be worth the bother.

Seriously. I live a little over an hour from a major US city (Pittsburgh) and it's more hassle than it's worth to make the trip. Driving that distance to get a game (an iffy prospect in itself) is right out.

And I somewhat resent your repeated assertion that online game stores are "leeches". Not all of us share your apparent gaming wonderland. For some of us online is the only realistic access to product we have. Oh, and I'd be willing to bet good odds that people with access to good game stores are outnumbered by scores of magnitude by those who don't.

But, hey, you got yours; so feth us, right?

~Eric

Edit for clarity:
The above was addressing Peregrine's comments , and not Insaniak's.

privateer4hire wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Since I have no local game stores and don't attend conventions, I guess I won't be buying any more FFG product.

Unless MM/Warstore qualify under their exception.

Is that because you wouldn't buy FFG stuff at full MSRP regardless of who you bought it from---even if nobody sold it discounted?
Honestly curious.

I would to support an LGS. I have bought lots of product at full MSRP when I lived near a gaming store, and was happy to do so as they provided services that an online store cannot.

My current issue is not so much being unwilling to pay MSRP, as having an actual avenue to purchase the product at all. If those avenues were closed, my hobby spending would become virtually zero, which might actually be good for my bank balance

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
First they cancel almost all of their 40K RPG lines and now this...

Got a link to that announcement?

Last book was released October and they're currently still doing reprints of a few others. I haven't seen or heard anything about the lines being canceled so I also would be interested in a link.

privateer4hire wrote:

Is that because you wouldn't buy FFG stuff at full MSRP regardless of who you bought it from---even if nobody sold it discounted?
Honestly curious.

I can't speak for Alex C, but I probably wouldn't buy FFG stuff at MSRP. Imperial Assault is currently being sold for $65 on Amazon. That's a pretty good price for that game - but I wouldn't consider it a bargain. However, the MSRP of Imperial Assault is $100, which is neither a bargain nor a particularly attractive price. There's no added value to me, the consumer, so all I see is that the price is now $30 more for no discernible benefit. The game did not become $30 more valuable, especially since it'd take $30 to then buy all the figures that the game left out (want Han? That's another $10... I mean $15). The Return to Hoth expansion is a difference of $20 - or the price of two figure expansions. FFG is built around endless expansions, and paying MSRP for those expansions will significantly increase their price - suddenly leaving Han out of Imperial Assault to be purchased separately seems like an even bigger rip off.

Even without the mental opposition of knowing I should be paying a lot less than I'm forced to, the fact is, I'm WAY less likely to buy something for $100 than I am $65. I have a limited budget every month for entertainment purposes. When the cost of board games goes up, I have to choose between them and other entertainment products, like video games, and since I'm not primarily a board gamer, board games lose out. The worsening value of board games would ensure that I spend my money elsewhere. Video games, for example, drop in price quickly, and I can get a $60 experience for $20-$30 if I wait two months. Imperial Assault could compete with that at $65, but not at $100. Can you tell me that Imperial Assault is worth four or five PS4 games?

So yeah, I wouldn't pay MSRP for FFG stuff. They only barely justify their cost now, at a 30%-50% discount, and at a higher price, they would lose their appeal completely.

 Alex C wrote:
Exactly. I've seen people lamenting a 40-minute trip as being too far out of the way. That's my trip to work every morning.

The nearest store to me is about a 40 minute round-trip... but it's in an area that I don't go to for anything else, and between work and family stuff, that just doesn't happen these days. If I couldn't buy what I need online, I wouldn't be buying anything.

I've bought exactly one new GW product since their regional sales policy went into effect. It would have been through Wayland Games (who run a physical store, and therefore don't count as parasites but who apparently are breaking the laws of time and space by selling at the same price as other online discounters despite such a thing being (apparently) impossible) but due to them no longer being allowed to sell to me, I bought from a US seller on eBay instead.

So, yeah, restricting online sales was certainly a win for the physical store there.




The policy under discussion here seems to be slightly different to GW's, but it's still a backwards step in an increasingly online world, and I don't see any way that it can be good for the hobby community as a whole.

medikant wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
First they cancel almost all of their 40K RPG lines and now this...

Got a link to that announcement?

Last book was released October and they're currently still doing reprints of a few others. I haven't seen or heard anything about the lines being canceled so I also would be interested in a link.

HBMC freelances as a writer for them. While he is absolutely technically correct in the strictest RAW YMDC rules sort of way, I suspect the distinction he draws between having a half dozen RPG lines and only coming out with product for the newest 1-2 of them in a given year versus "cancelling" them isn't shared by everyone. YMMV but I think it is more forthright for a company to simply say "we've cancelled further development for the game" instead of saying nothing and most importantly doing nothing for multiple years on end with no actual news.

 warboss wrote:
SNIP

He was asking for the announcement link, I was just seconding the hope for some sort of link if it was canceled. Brook was the one who said it was.

That would suck for peoples that live overseas and the only way to get this stuff is online.

 Alex C wrote:

privateer4hire wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Since I have no local game stores and don't attend conventions, I guess I won't be buying any more FFG product.

Unless MM/Warstore qualify under their exception.

Is that because you wouldn't buy FFG stuff at full MSRP regardless of who you bought it from---even if nobody sold it discounted?
Honestly curious.

I would to support an LGS. I have bought lots of product at full MSRP when I lived near a gaming store, and was happy to do so as they provided services that an online store cannot.

My current issue is not so much being unwilling to pay MSRP, as having an actual avenue to purchase the product at all. If those avenues were closed, my hobby spending would become virtually zero, which might actually be good for my bank balance

Gotcha. Thanks for the response.

I really doubt they will forbid online sales. That seems unlikely and foolish.

They will likely try to rein in huge online discounts, which currently make buying FFG stuff for MSRP seem pretty dumb.

The reality is that in the US gaming stores are the center of hobby communities the bulk of the time.

 Polonius wrote:
I really doubt they will forbid online sales. That seems unlikely and foolish.

They will likely try to rein in huge online discounts, which currently make buying FFG stuff for MSRP seem pretty dumb.

The reality is that in the US gaming stores are the center of hobby communities the bulk of the time.

The article says they are and the website is run by one of the distributors mentioned in the article.

Online sales and mail order will be prohibited with exceptions granted for online retailers that “contribute either significant scale, unique service, or other exceptional differentiation,” the company said.

I'm guess that "significant scale" part will exclude the really big online names like the warstore, wayland, and miniature market for now. FFG is likely banking on most of the small mom and pop online sales not being lost since the smaller retailers don't have a choice but don't want to risk pissing off the few folks that give them tens of thousands of dollars monthly/yearly.

 Polonius wrote:
I really doubt they will forbid online sales. That seems unlikely and foolish.

Well, no... they're just forbidding online sales from anyone who doesn't sell huge quantities.


Because, you know, Amazon needs all the help it can get ...

 insaniak wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
I really doubt they will forbid online sales. That seems unlikely and foolish.

Well, no... they're just forbidding online sales from anyone who doesn't sell huge quantities.


Because, you know, Amazon needs all the help it can get ...

So in essence they're restricting the ability of the small business owner to enter and compete in the online marketplace, therefore cutting revenue streams for friendly local brick and mortar stores?

I'm still failing to see how this is good for anyone, least of all any local physical store that you might frequent.

 Alex C wrote:
So feth us guys then, right?

I think Perry's forgotten just how damned big the US is.

TIL I'm a parasite because I live in the country and don't have a brick and mortar store to support.

 streamdragon wrote:
TIL I'm a parasite because I live in the country and don't have a brick and mortar store to support.

No, you're not the parasite. That would be silly.

It's the online stores that you buy from that are parasites, because they're taking your money but contributing nothing to your gaming community.

Because apparently giving people access to stuff that they otherwise wouldn't have access to doesn't count...

Mod note - No more language like "parasite" in this thread, please - it's needlessly incendiary and dragging the thread off topic.

Thanks in advance