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He mimicked my phrasing, and I used that phrase in the context of not doing market research, so took it to mean the same.

Of course, a great deal of effort goes into extracting as much cash as possible from their customers, I'm sure one click bundles took many hours of meetings at the highest level just by themselves!

But I can't find a better word for a retailer/manufacturer that doesn't exploit every possible avenue open to it to find out what its customers want, so it can actually make it, than lazy?

Well, I suppose there's arrogant, but why not both?

'Arrogant' I think works better.

They don't skip the market research out of laziness, they do so out of a belief that it is completely uneccessary, so doing it would just be a waste of time and resources.

That's not laziness, it's efficiency... provided you're actually correct, and you know what you're doing.

And that fits Kirby's attitude perfectly. He feels that there is no point in doing market research, because he is firmly convinced that the product they make is the product that their customers want... and if you don't want it, well, you're not a customer, so that doesn't count.

It's a perfect system.

Although I did actually say CBA rather than lazy, originally, which fits just as well.

I'm sure in two weeks Mr K will be completely vindicated.

 Azreal13 wrote:
It's a perfect system.

Although I did actually say CBA rather than lazy, originally, which fits just as well.

I'm sure in two weeks Mr K will be completely vindicated.

Garbage in, garbage out. They get out of the system that they created an income commensurate to the amount of effort that they put into it to begin with.

Falling sales volume likely caused by (choose one or several):
- Lack of communication with customers.
- Lack of advertising.
- Poor quality product.
- Toxic corporate culture.
- Loss of customer satisfaction resulting in loss of customers.
- Bad public relations (i.e. sue someone who uses a similar word to one that you do), resulting in loss of customers.
- Poor product support after sale (i.e. rules clarifications, also see first point).
- Overestimating demand for some products while grossly underestimating demand for others resulting in poor customer experience or excess stock. Likely caused by first point and contributed by second point (you can't gauge excitement about a product (potential demand) that you don't advertise until a week before it's released).

The good news is that we only get his ramblings in 1/2 of the report now, The Chairman's Preamble, unless Mr. Rountree goes the same literary route in the CEO report.

 Azreal13 wrote:

@agnosto - yet Centurions, Windriders, Wraithknights, and Wraithguard are NOT bestsellers -- not even top 28 --, while Blood Angels Tactical Squad, Tyranid Swarm, Cadian defense force, and Harlequin Troupe are. If anyone thinks these are a path to a super-winning army, have I got a bridge to sell you. In fact, a ton of the top 28 kits so far are weak -- they made more money off of land raiders and toxicrenes than wraithknights and riptide, ffs. Hardly anything you see on power lists show up, with the notable exception of drop pods and the entire skitarii faction. Maybe GW is right and there is a high proportion of non- and hardly-gamers.

You mean, older kits that have likely fulfilled the demand already didn't sell as much as kits released this year and staples? Shock! Horror! We also have absolutely no idea what criteria where applied to arrive at the result. Asking the mums that brought their kids to WHW one day in November what they liked the look of for all we know.

Read up to see Insaniak's context as to Agnosto's comment, but essentially it boiled down to "kits with good rules sell well, while kits with bad rules will sell not as well".

Yet Eldar Windriders, a kit that is brand new to 2015 and is argued as the most overpowered troop in the entire game, did not make the top 28 bestsellers list. Eldar Harlequin Troupe, launched only a little while before them, and a MUCH, MUCH weaker unit, is near the top of the pack. At the far extreme, Blood Angels Tactical Squad, arguably one of the worst units in one of the crappiest factions (if you like winning) in terms of rules right now, got something like #6 bestseller.

So what I'm saying is, good rules isn't the only thing that sells models. Hell, awesomely imbalanced rules might not even sell models. People buy what they want to buy because the think Blood Angels look cool, and Harlequins are awesome. It hardly matters that both are great ways to build an army that will lose way more battles than they'll win.

Looking at the top 28 list so far, if you strip out the AdMech (which people have been asking for... ever), a lot of the units just aren't good units, or at least aren't GREAT units or kits that are a part of a winning formula:

Tyranid Swarm, BA Tac Squad, Cadian Defence Force, Harlequin Troupe, Toxicrene, Zoans, Tyrannocyte, Chaos Space Marines, Starweaver, Tempestus Scions, Land Raider Crusader, Baneblade -- and I would even argue Space Marine Tactical Squad, because other than Gladius, they kinda suck.

So out of the 17 40k kits listed so far (excluding AdMech), I think that somewhere around 12 of those are "junk units". Like, competitive players do not use baneblades, LRCs, toxicrenes, etc. For all the, "Eldar and Necron are easy mode", there's nothing that's Craftworld Eldar, and only the Necron battleforce in the top 28. Draw whatever conclusions you want out of that. One *possible* conclusion is that GW is right, and a lot of their customers buy the models just because they like modelling them, and rarely, or never play, or only play casually, without caring much about strength levels of models.

If you disagree, then tell me why you think Harlequins outsold Windriders.

 Azreal13 wrote:
So would we all, but that's not the same as paying good coffee rather than have gak coffee for free.

Except some of us disagree, and like the coffee we're paying for, and think the competitor's coffee is lest tasty.

If I had to guess, I would suspect that Harlies outsold the new jetbike due to a combination of the fact that the Harlies are really pretty models while the jetbike was a little underwhelming compared to the Dark Eldar version, and the fact that plastic jetbikes have been available for 20 years now, while plastic harlequins haven't.

The rules certainly aren't the only factor in determining sales, but I very strongly suspect that they do have an influence.

To be frank, we have no idea how GW compiled their best-selling list. We don't know if it was done on units sold, or value sold, or some kind of compensation factor for cost/time. It might conceivably just have been made up by the web content manager to suit a promotion idea. And it's only a ranking, not a list of hard data.

We don't know the sales period, except it doesn't include Christmas 2015 because this ranking started at the beginning of the month. Maybe 1,000,000 dads bought stocking fillers of the little Termagant Snapfit kit on Christmas Eve? We'll never know.

Anyway, it's obvious that everyone doesn't have the same motivation for buying a kit. Some people buy it for rules, others buy it for looks.

 insaniak wrote:
If I had to guess, I would suspect that Harlies outsold the new jetbike due to a combination of the fact that the Harlies are really pretty models while the jetbike was a little underwhelming compared to the Dark Eldar version, and the fact that plastic jetbikes have been available for 20 years now, while plastic harlequins haven't.

The rules certainly aren't the only factor in determining sales, but I very strongly suspect that they do have an influence.

Indeed, I am one of the people who bought harlequins for no reason other than that I love the models. Still, windriders came with 3 of each heavy weapon, including scatterlasers. For the competitive crowd, that's pretty important -- I mean, otherwise, no particular model is important, as you can proxy anything for anything else. Still, BANEBLADES, LRCs, and toxicrenes outsold all those awesomely performing models, like space marine bikes, eldar bikes, wraithknights, riptides, dreadknights, and on and on.

I mean other than drop pods and presumably IK, there were no OP 'easy mode' spammy models that made it to the top. az's point was valid to say that other than windriders, a lot of the powerful models are dated, so the people who wanted them already bought them. But a lot of the models that made top 28 that are weak are also dated, and there are fantastic performers that are nice models for crappy factions.

I don't think, therefore, that the GW position that a lot of their customers are primarily modelers or collectors is that outrageous. It shouldn't be jut dismissed. This leads to two interesting conclusions: first, because GW still accounts for a huge percentage of miniature sales, a significant percentage of gamers/modelers' spending goes to what they perceive as cool models rather than strong units; and that there are plenty of people for whom weak model rules is not a deterrent to purchases.

Putting on the conspiracy hat, is it possible that nids and blood angels have nigh unwinnable rules, while necron and eldar have superb rules as an experiment to see if strong factions mean strong sales?

 Talys wrote:

I don't think, therefore, that the GW position that a lot of their customers are primarily modelers or collectors is that outrageous. It shouldn't be jut dismissed.

I don't dismiss it. I'm now a GW "modeller" who only buys a model once in a while when I think it is cool. I think I bought 4 models/boxes this year and the same roughly last year. This is unfortunately not by choice though. I used to make an army a year back in 3rd edition and then slowed down to an army every edition by 5th. With the changes in 6th, any thoughts of a new full army just stopped cold and I pretty much just dropped down to buying the codex for my existing armies. With 7th and the rehashing of 1-2 year old books that I just bought in gaming terms, I stopped even doing that. I've got one army that I'll keep tourney legal (my Tau) and the rest will just live on as battlescribe army lists of my existing models and units where applicable without GW getting a penny. So GW successfully converted someone who was spending over $1000 a year each year in 5th edition to someone that has spent about $200 this year (most of it "recycled" by selling existing GW products on the secondary market instead of increasing my collection) and likely less in 2016 because I don't plan on buying any rules at all this upcoming year... yay for Kirby and his apprentice and their master plan?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To be frank, we have no idea how GW compiled their best-selling list. We don't know if it was done on units sold, or value sold, or some kind of compensation factor for cost/time. It might conceivably just have been made up by the web content manager to suit a promotion idea. And it's only a ranking, not a list of hard data.

We don't know the sales period, except it doesn't include Christmas 2015 because this ranking started at the beginning of the month. Maybe 1,000,000 dads bought stocking fillers of the little Termagant Snapfit kit on Christmas Eve? We'll never know.

Anyway, it's obvious that everyone doesn't have the same motivation for buying a kit. Some people buy it for rules, others buy it for looks.

Exactly. What sales is being utilized to determine a products position on that list? Sales volume, percent of stock sold, informal questionnaire, number of clicks on the website? Without hard data, it's impossible to determine that anything on that list is valid so then what's left is supposition, guestimation, and anecdotal conversation. Talys may disagree with my take on it but lacking any hard data it's all opinion vs. opinion.

@warboss - there is no question in my mind that GW has alienated some players by their pricing and their game rules.

@agnosto - When you read the paragraphs in the app, it's pretty clear and consistent that they're best SELLERS, rather than clicks on the website, or choices for stocking stuffers. Now, we can debate whether that's unit or dollars, but it's probably dollars, because it's hard to imagine more Tyranid swarm KITS than Blood Angels Tactical or Harlequin Troupe kits.

The blurb on Tyranid Swarm reads:

Into the top 5...

Our fifth-biggest selling kit of 2015? Why that would be the Tyranid Swarm. Understandable, you get a lot of models for your money - ninety-five miniatures are included! How do you fancy overwhelming your opponent with sheer force of numbers? This is the perfect kit for you, truly.

Only a few more kits to go until we reveal the biggest seller - what do you think it will be?

 Talys wrote:
@warboss - there is no question in my mind that GW has alienated some players by their pricing and their game rules.

@agnosto - When you read the paragraphs in the app, it's pretty clear and consistent that they're best SELLERS, rather than clicks on the website, or choices for stocking stuffers. Now, we can debate whether that's unit or dollars, but it's probably dollars, because it's hard to imagine more Tyranid swarm KITS than Blood Angels Tactical or Harlequin Troupe kits.

The blurb on Tyranid Swarm reads:

Into the top 5...

Our fifth-biggest selling kit of 2015? Why that would be the Tyranid Swarm. Understandable, you get a lot of models for your money - ninety-five miniatures are included! How do you fancy overwhelming your opponent with sheer force of numbers? This is the perfect kit for you, truly.

Only a few more kits to go until we reveal the biggest seller - what do you think it will be?

To be fair, iirc a few tourney players experimented with the Toxocrine in place of the Dimachaeron in metas that didn't allow forgeworld, same for Venomthropes where Malanthropes weren't allowed.

Tyrannocytes besides being the Tyranid drop pod also included Mucolids, another competitive choice for tourney lists as a minimum troops choice- three were required for the Leviathan detachment that lets you run 3 Flyrants.

Tyranid swarm includes Rippers- another tourney troop choice, Genestealers and a Carnifex(alternate choices for different lists), Gargoyles to be used in the more competitive Flyrant formations, and then "free" termagants and hormagaunts.

I'm a little surprised Lictors didn't make the list because of "Lictor Shame" that was being run for a good while, but they also didn't get a new kit. But I did notice their prices shot up on eBay.

 Talys wrote:
@warboss - there is no question in my mind that GW has alienated some players by their pricing and their game rules.

Yeah, I just wanted to point out that folks critical of their policies don't necessarily discount their "modelers" focus. Heck, I'm one of those "success" stories in that they turned me from a lowly peasant games focused consumer into a chosen master race modeller who incidentally spends only a fraction of the amount that I previously did.

@warboss - as the game ages from years to decades, it's hard to imagine how they keep it fresh other than to introduce new factions, though.

If GW stopped adding to old factions (in a significant way, ie just refreshes and occasional minor releases or releases that are purely optional and a lateral power shift rather than vertical) and just released new factions as their primary moneymaker, they'd be making like 8 factions a year (this year, they added 3... Sigmarites, Harlequins, and AdMech); in 20 years, they'd have 160 factions

You can't just add "more of the same" and expect people to keep buying for their factions forever, too. Like, continuously churning out more 28mm infantry models for decades is going to be a dead end at some point, because no matter how much people love librarians, they're going to stop (or at least drastically slow down) once they hit a certain number.

So the obvious solutions are to (1) build radically different things and change the game or (2) build another game.

I think #1 is easier to succeed in than #2, if you have a really hot game. After all, if someone is going to quit 40k and look at another game, it's a great time for them to just say, why not consider another company altogether? On the other hand, if the choice is between adding to their 40k collection or starting another game, that's a different thought process entirely.

Like I said a while back, I think it's worthy of discussion if and how a company can maintain churn for someone like you, ** for decades ** without drastically mixing things up. I don't think that in a context of a game with 10 or so factions, it's possible to expect someone to spend $1,000 a year for 20 years on basically horizontal shifts of the same stuff (more infantry, more tanks, more elite infantry, more fast/recon units, reboot infantry, reboot tanks, etc.).

 Talys wrote:
@warboss - there is no question in my mind that GW has alienated some players by their pricing and their game rules.

@agnosto - When you read the paragraphs in the app, it's pretty clear and consistent that they're best SELLERS, rather than clicks on the website, or choices for stocking stuffers. Now, we can debate whether that's unit or dollars, but it's probably dollars, because it's hard to imagine more Tyranid swarm KITS than Blood Angels Tactical or Harlequin Troupe kits.

The blurb on Tyranid Swarm reads:

Into the top 5...

Our fifth-biggest selling kit of 2015? Why that would be the Tyranid Swarm. Understandable, you get a lot of models for your money - ninety-five miniatures are included! How do you fancy overwhelming your opponent with sheer force of numbers? This is the perfect kit for you, truly.

Only a few more kits to go until we reveal the biggest seller - what do you think it will be?

I'm that case there's an obvious bias towards kits that were out a whole year vs those out a month or less also a bias towards box sets rather than single models, etc.

Highest selling doesn't necessarily mean money, it quite often means number of units sold.

Are they just using their own data or does that include 3rd parties? If it includes 3rd parties, it will be inflated as it won't include returned product or product just sitting on shelves. They very well might just be counting anything that left warehouse as a sold item. I think that you can tell the issue with relying on bald statements not backed by hard, clearly defined data and parameters.

So. Back to opinion.

Are we back to arguing quality again? I find a lot of Mantic's figures to be pretty decent (their Orcs and Undead are really good, their Elves look like fae not GW pointy-eared humans, and their Dwarves while a bit taller than normal look blocky like Dwarves should), and the worst of them (Basileans) are no worse than GW's Empire troops that look about as ugly, if not uglier, since at least the Basileans look uniform not like a bunch of riffraff that were stuffed into Landsknecht uniforms and sent out (and what is up with the barefoot guy? Did he lost his boots in a game of cards?).

GW's problem is they aren't all that much quality. It's basically the equivalent of selling you a Lexus that turns out to really be a Camry, but you paid for a Lexus. If you're okay with that, then fine, but there's REAL quality miniatures out there (typically plastic kits by Bandai and Tamiya and the like) which, while it might not scratch your itch if you want Space Marines and skulls and Aquilas on things, quality-wise are heads and shoulders above anything GW can do.

 Talys wrote:
@warboss - as the game ages from years to decades, it's hard to imagine how they keep it fresh other than to introduce new factions, though.

If GW stopped adding to old factions (in a significant way, ie just refreshes and occasional minor releases or releases that are purely optional and a lateral power shift rather than vertical) and just released new factions as their primary moneymaker, they'd be making like 8 factions a year (this year, they added 3... Sigmarites, Harlequins, and AdMech); in 20 years, they'd have 160 factions

You can't just add "more of the same" and expect people to keep buying for their factions forever, too. Like, continuously churning out more 28mm infantry models for decades is going to be a dead end at some point, because no matter how much people love librarians, they're going to stop (or at least drastically slow down) once they hit a certain number.

So the obvious solutions are to (1) build radically different things and change the game or (2) build another game.

I think #1 is easier to succeed in than #2, if you have a really hot game. After all, if someone is going to quit 40k and look at another game, it's a great time for them to just say, why not consider another company altogether? On the other hand, if the choice is between adding to their 40k collection or starting another game, that's a different thought process entirely.

Like I said a while back, I think it's worthy of discussion if and how a company can maintain churn for someone like you, ** for decades ** without drastically mixing things up. I don't think that in a context of a game with 10 or so factions, it's possible to expect someone to spend $1,000 a year for 20 years on basically horizontal shifts of the same stuff (more infantry, more tanks, more elite infantry, more fast/recon units, reboot infantry, reboot tanks, etc.).

This is in response to my post but I'm definitely not arguing against any of that (and I don't see anyone in the thread doing so either) in case that was why. I think it would have been better for the company to "reboot" 40k in 6th edition with a ground up purpose built ruleset that accomodated the change of focus to the "bigger" both in terms of model count and model size that the company wanted. Instead, they decided to just take the previously optional apoc rules and cram them right up the rear end of the main rules leaving out the single mediocre attempt at a balancing factor they had (points cost for formations). Would there be an uproar if they had invalidated every codex and every supplement at one time after 3 editions? Sure.. absolutely. There was one in 3rd edition when they did the same thing... but people got over it when they realized they had a full set of streamlined (compared to second edition) rules that started everyone on relatively equal footing. If they wanted to shake things up again like in 3rd edition which also had an increase in game scope and model size by adding in what was previously only apoc, they should have done it the right way instead of just has assing it TWICE with books that were only intended to last half the time yet costed twice as much as their predecessors. It was their choice of trying to have their cake AND eating it too that has gotten them to this point.

If you want to start another thread to discuss what they could/should have done, feel free to post the link here so we don't derail it further.

edit: For readers, please note that I'm not looking back at 3rd edition with purely rose tinted glasses as I fully admit that it had lots of growing pains and warts. Some were cleared up in further editions up to and including 5th but some stayed on largely because the desire to really change things was lost after 3rd but at least the desire to refine stayed until 5th. 3rd was a big departure and I'm sure it lost them some customers but it was also a huge success and a period (at least subjectively) of great growth for the game. I got in on 3rd precisely because I wanted to play something in store (the "herd" effect) and because it felt like everyone was going to be on the same footing with regard to books and rules. The local 40k group grew from 3-4 regulars in 2nd edition to over a dozen showing up twice a week midway through 3rd. YMMV obviously but the changes I saw (especially when I looked at the previous 2nd edition rules) were positive overall and I was glad that GW had the business sense to do what was very good for them in the long term and look beyond just 6 months into the future. Unfortunately, the changes over the past 3 years or so (whenever 6th edition hit) feel purely motivated by the desire to sell every NEW model to every customer with fluff/rules/balance "spin" tacked on as an afterthought to justify the already cemented decision.

 Talys wrote:
Indeed, I am one of the people who bought harlequins for no reason other than that I love the models. Still, windriders came with 3 of each heavy weapon, including scatterlasers. For the competitive crowd, that's pretty important --

Less important if you already have a bunch of jetbikes and can buy scatterlasers to slap on them from eBay.

I don't think, therefore, that the GW position that a lot of their customers are primarily modelers or collectors is that outrageous. It shouldn't be jut dismissed.

Not only was I not dismissing it, I completely agree with it.

My point was that rules potentially have an impact on sales, not that they are the sole factor in it.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Are we back to arguing quality again? I find a lot of Mantic's figures to be pretty decent (their Orcs and Undead are really good, their Elves look like fae not GW pointy-eared humans, and their Dwarves while a bit taller than normal look blocky like Dwarves should), and the worst of them (Basileans) are no worse than GW's Empire troops that look about as ugly, if not uglier, since at least the Basileans look uniform not like a bunch of riffraff that were stuffed into Landsknecht uniforms and sent out (and what is up with the barefoot guy? Did he lost his boots in a game of cards?).

GW's problem is they aren't all that much quality. It's basically the equivalent of selling you a Lexus that turns out to really be a Camry, but you paid for a Lexus. If you're okay with that, then fine, but there's REAL quality miniatures out there (typically plastic kits by Bandai and Tamiya and the like) which, while it might not scratch your itch if you want Space Marines and skulls and Aquilas on things, quality-wise are heads and shoulders above anything GW can do.

where exactly are the GW plastics lacking in quality???
i see this statement a lot on here, but have yet to crack open a new GW plastic kit that has any quality issues, as far as i can tell...
what am i missing???

cheers
jah

Other companies make tank models far larger and more detailed than anything FW produces for $40-50. The smaller, less detailed FW tanks are $100-400.

 Toofast wrote:
Other companies make tank models far larger and more detailed than anything FW produces for $40-50. The smaller, less detailed FW tanks are $100-400.

which other company makes a Land Raider Spartan, or a Tau Hammerhead, or an Eldar Night Spinner???
the point is not that i can buy an Abrams with more detail for less money, the point is that i can get a specific model from GW, which i cannot get from another company...
if i want a Hammerhead, an Abrams is not going to cut the mustard, even if it costs half as much...

aesthetic appeals aside, my question is, where are the recent GW HIPS kits lacking in quality???
is the plastic bad???
are the moldlines excessive???
are the details shallow???
does the material warp???
are miscasts common???

i understand that they may not be to everybody's aesthetic taste, and that the prices are turning off a lot of people, but i don't see where the lack of quality argument is coming from...
lack of perceived value, sure, i can understand...
the problem is, if people are not buying the kits in the first place, then they don't have the sprues in hand to really judge the quality of the sculpting and casting...
no photo will ever compare to actually holding a model in hand, unfortunately...
at half the price, i am sure a lot more people would appreciate the good work the the studio is doing...

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:
which other company makes a Land Raider Spartan, or a Tau Hammerhead, or an Eldar Night Spinner???

Oh seriously, this AGAIN?

"What's wrong with GW quality?"

"Other companies make higher quality models for lower prices"

"BUT THEY DON'T MAKE SPACE MARINES!"

I've read this discussion so many times it's starting to get a bit old.

aesthetic appeals aside, my question is, where are the recent GW HIPS kits lacking in quality???
is the plastic bad???
are the moldlines excessive???
are the details shallow???
does the material warp???
are miscasts common???

To me they're just over priced. Whether you say they lack quality for their price or their price is too high for the quality is kind of the same thing.

 jah-joshua wrote:

aesthetic appeals aside, my question is, where are the recent GW HIPS kits lacking in quality???
is the plastic bad???
are the moldlines excessive???
are the details shallow???
does the material warp???
are miscasts common???

No
Yes
Yes
No
No

Looking at vehicles GW don't use nearly as many parts as someone like Tamiya, leading to fewer sprues and cheaper production costs, but a huge lack of detail and theynstill cost more.
GW do a lot of giant monsters in plastic and for the most part I'd say plastic is simply a bad material to do large sections of flesh with because there should be anlot kore texture over those areas than GW use. Ideally a real resin would be what you want there.
Little things like chains dangling off marines actually being more like solid disksthat simply move through one another instead of actual chains.
Details on things like knee pads that suddenly become blurred or shallow as they curve around the leg because of the limitations on GW plastics and undercuts.

@Skink: why even bother to respond just to belittle my argument, ignoring the fact that i also gave an example of an Eldar vehicle, and a Tau vehicle???
that should make the discussion new and fresh...

if you don't like what i have to say, just put me on ignore, instead of dismissing the fact that there are models that you can get from GW which you cannot get from another company, and that the sprues are excellent casts...

this is a thread about GW model sales, so i am talking about GW models...
what a shock!!!

nice chatting with you...
maybe relax a little, and enjoy the holiday spirit...

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Skink: why even bother to respond just to belittle my argument, ignoring the fact that i also gave an example of an Eldar vehicle, and a Tau vehicle???
that should make the discussion new and fresh...

if you don't like what i have to say, just put me on ignore, instead of dismissing the fact that there are models that you can get from GW which you cannot get from another company, and that the sprues are excellent casts...

this is a thread about GW model sales, so i am talking about GW models...
what a shock!!!

I'm not putting you on ignore because I don't hate everything you say.

though I will admit....
I hate...
the way....
you type everything...
like this...

But aside from that, we know other companies don't make GW models.... the fact GW is the only one that makes GW models doesn't factor in to the objective quality argument. It factors in to whether you subjectively are happy to pay an excess for the quality, but in and of itself it is not a quality argument.

Other companies produce models with more parts, more advanced design, using sliding moulds, with less prominent mould lines, for less money.

No, they don't make Space Marines... however the fact something is or is not a Space Marine does not factor in to the quality debate.

maybe relax a little, and enjoy the holiday spirit...

Yeah I fething hate this time of year, best not to appeal to my holiday spirit

@Skink: i see it like this, if i want a Warcaster, i buy a PP model, but i don't buy one of the restic versions in the Battle Box, because the mold lines are excessive and the casts have the bends...
instead, i buy a metal one...
at the end of the day, i have a model that fits the PP aesthetic, and the IK setting, and inspires me to paint a recognizable symbol of that world...

i could get a passable stand-in for a Warcaster from Reaper for less money, but it wouldn't be the model i want...
is a metal Reaper mini (that doesn't do as good a job of representing the Warcaster), but is cheaper, better quality than the more expensive PP mini???

if you compared the GW sprues to a Wyrd sprue, there are no more mold lines on a GW mini than there are on a Wyrd plastic mini...
the GW plastic is actually a bit softer, and easier to clean the mold lines off of than the Wyrd plastics...
both are equally well cast sprues, and go together with a similar amount of gaps on the monopose minis, which GW's modular kits don't suffer from at all...
the difference is, Wyrd kits are cheaper, but again, if you are not after a Steampunk style mini, then the lower price doesn't help...

kits like the Baneblade have used sliding molds since 2007, but if the price is too high, then less people will be able to appreciate the fact that GW bothered...
i get that...
the question is, where are the technical faults in the 2013 Space Marine Tactical Squads sprues that would make the Dreamforge Valkir be perceived as higher quality sculpts???
is the fact that they cost almost half as much the new measure of quality in sculpting and casting???
i don't think so, but i don't expect anyone to agree with me...

cheers
jah

If someone wants a GW fantasy model, for whatever reason, then a GW model is what he wants.

A Perry Bros ACW model will not fill the part, no matter how much "objective" quality it contains in terms of accuracy, fine details per square inch and so on.

That is "quality" defined in terms of meeting customer requirements.

 Talys wrote:
@insaniak - 'all' was too strong an adjective. There is a disproportionate investment in redesign an improvement into a segment that is not good for all of us in the long term. Things like sports cars and big-engine SUVs were just an example, but I'm sure you can think of many things in the world that follow, 'make what they want now, not what will be good for them later'.

Where car manufacturers diverge from GW is that car manufacturers spend millions of dollars a year on both market research (what do people want? In the US that is SUV's and huge engines), and on improving everything about their cars. In the US you can now get Mustangs and Camaros with V6 engines that was unheard of a generation ago, and in Europe most high end cars have dropped a couple of cylinders too and are going the turbocharging route. So your statements are entirely incorrect.

An example that shows car manufacturers overcoming the GW mindset. In the late 80's/early 90's, Toyota bigwigs refused to consider making a pick-up truck even for the export market because there's no need for them in Japan and they can't figure out why anyone would enter such a small market. Said bigwigs are taken to a baseball game and shown the car park, which is made up of nearly 50% pick-up trucks. They immediately change their mind and bring out the Hilux, regarded as the best pick-up truck ever made.

Japanese companies are glacially slow to change anything (it's part of their culture), but they'll still admit mistakes and make changes they feel are needed.

 jah-joshua wrote:
is the fact that they cost almost half as much the new measure of quality in sculpting and casting???
i don't think so, but i don't expect anyone to agree with me...

You can talk about quality in terms of price.

You can think of it as being able to buy the same thing cheaper, in which case the thought of it being over priced comes to mind.

Or you can think of it as being able to buy something of higher quality for the same price, in which case the thought of it being lower quality comes to mind.

I think the Imperial Knight is poor quality because I can compare it to kits of the same price from other manufacturers. Likewise if the IK was half the price I might no longer think of it as poor quality because I'd no longer be comparing it to those other premium kits. So which is it, is it poor quality or is it over priced? Really just depends how you look at it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If someone wants a GW fantasy model, for whatever reason, then a GW model is what he wants.

A Perry Bros ACW model will not fill the part, no matter how much "objective" quality it contains in terms of accuracy, fine details per square inch and so on.

You can still compare quality between disparate items. Viewing a Space Marine and a Perry ACW infantryman as fluffless generic miniatures, which one is the higher quality? Is the price difference worth it?

That is "quality" defined in terms of meeting customer requirements.

Only if the customer requirement is that it's made by Games Workshop, and I have to admit GW have acted brilliantly in getting this mindset to become so prevalent.

Sure, there's a distinct benefit in meeting your customer requirements, but that'd be a customer service quality rather than a miniature quality, unless the mini was custom build to a customers specifications.

We can all agree that only GW can make GW models (though plenty of proxies exist), but that doesn't invalidate the view that GW miniatures are poor quality (or poor value) compared to other miniatures.