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Maybe, but I know enough to know the meta of my country and there is none that simply collects for display.

Internationally I cannot claim such knowledge, but, from the global forums I observe the norm is that an army is collected for playing.

Locally (well my country is small so I visit tournaments all over Holland) I don't really know anyone who purely collects GW miniatures without also playing at least one of their game systems.

If they don't play you wouldn't meat them at tournaments anyway though?

Exactly. You wouldn't meet people who are collectors only because they would have no reason to visit a club, gaming night or tournament... They also would have no reason to visit gaming forums. Look on painting forums and you'll find them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 loki old fart wrote:
I think GW's quality is lackluster at best. When some guy out in the sticks can produce better space marines. Compare thousand sons.
GW at 13 pounds plus p+p
[]http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99800102019_ThousandSonsUpgradePackNEW01.jpg[/img]
Too some guy in Ukraine at 18 pounds
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181880138230?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
[]http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODAwWDgwMA==/z/faQAAOSwv0tVeaVi/$_57.JPG[/img]

Now I have both. And the Ukrainian guy wins hands down.
Now neither kit supplies legs or bases. And both are in resin, so it's a like for like comparison.
games workshop produces gaming pieces. The quality isn't good enough for collecting.

That TS kit is super old. if you want to talk collectibles, look at something like Nagash.

 Mymearan wrote:
Exactly. You wouldn't meet people who are collectors only because they would have no reason to visit a club, gaming night or tournament... They also would have no reason to visit gaming forums. Look on painting forums and you'll find them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 loki old fart wrote:
I think GW's quality is lackluster at best. When some guy out in the sticks can produce better space marines. Compare thousand sons.
GW at 13 pounds plus p+p
[]http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99800102019_ThousandSonsUpgradePackNEW01.jpg[/img]
Too some guy in Ukraine at 18 pounds
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181880138230?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
[]http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODAwWDgwMA==/z/faQAAOSwv0tVeaVi/$_57.JPG[/img]

Now I have both. And the Ukrainian guy wins hands down.
Now neither kit supplies legs or bases. And both are in resin, so it's a like for like comparison.
games workshop produces gaming pieces. The quality isn't good enough for collecting.

That TS kit is super old. if you want to talk collectibles, look at something like Nagash.

So I use a 18 pound resin troop choice for comparison, against a resin troop choice. And you compare it to a 65 pound HQ model.

Maybe the "collectors" only order online and don't come into the stores. I have seen zero evidence of people purchasing GW product with zero intents to play it.

Regarding price inelasticitiy... It my sales region, it looks like GW has been following the 5x minimum wage for squad boxes and 7x minimum wage for tanks / monster kits for quite some time. Only recently have they moved beyond this. The new tau squad box is 7x minimum wage and the current crop of big kits is 10-13x minimum wage and Archaon represents a new high, as he's a heady 20x minimum wage.

Considering that real incomes also increased at around the same amount 2000-2015 (Canada average of $16.50/h to $23.50/h), for a full time worker - if GW products were viewed as expensive before, ratcheting up the prices at the speeds they are now are going to really test that "price inelasticity" that they are so fond of.

I really do not know, I know most of the shops (of my country) and nobody in our conversations ever mentioned somebody buying a force just for display purposes.

 keezus wrote:
Maybe the "collectors" only order online and don't come into the stores. I have seen zero evidence of people purchasing GW product with zero intents to play it.

I saw one, once. Was recognised by the staff too and popped in when he was in the area to find out what was new to paint since he was in last. I think he bought one of the big character packs at the time (this was pre Hobbit, so I'm struggling to remember what).

So anyway, they definitely exist, but unless you hung out in a GW you'd probably never notice them as most probably don't vocalise why they are there. I still think they make up a pretty small proportion of sales though, compared to a mr 5-unpainted-baneblades-for-an-apoc-game at the same store.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Does GW make models for wargaming? I thought they made models for model collectors.

Indeed, confirmed by Rick Priestley.

 keezus wrote:
Maybe the "collectors" only order online and don't come into the stores. I have seen zero evidence of people purchasing GW product with zero intents to play it.

Well, if you pop open a Visions, you'll see clearly that some models aren't meant for game play -- all those in dioramas or mounted onto display plinths, but also a lot of the really pretty ones are unlikely to ever see a game table. And obviously contest entries.

Ironically, all of my non-GW models -- like all my PP models and Infinity models -- are purchased just to collect, and not to game with In terms of GW, I think that 60% of my 40k models see at least 1 game, but some of them for factions that I do play never see a game (like Mephiston; I just don't like the unit, but I like the lore). That number comes out of me varnishing about half of my models, and playing just 1 or 2 games with a few models that I don't bother to varnish, because I know it won't see a game table again. My entire Fantasy collection was not intended for game play, and a few of them only ever saw a game table because of wanting to try out AoS.

Also, I have a complete, painted set of Space Hulk models (painted to a decent standard), that have never seen a game of Space Hulk. Why? I painted them in 2014, and I haven't played a game of SH since the 3e release, what, 5 years ago, and don't really ever plan to again, so that last set was really done from a collectors' perspective, though it's not inconceivable that they see a SH game some time in my life (but the models aren't varnished).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You know, it's worth looking at GW's mission statement if you want to know if they intend to be a miniature or gaming company, or to what degree:

http://investor.games-workshop.com/our-business-model/

A little snip:

We have a simple strategy at Games Workshop. We make the best fantasy miniatures in the world and sell them globally at a profit and we intend to do this forever.

Simple, but every part of this statement is important.

We make things. We are a manufacturer. Not a retailer. We do have outlets in retail locations. We call these Games Workshop Hobby centres because they show customers how to engage with our hobby of collecting, painting and playing with our miniatures and games. They are the front end of our manufacturing business. If our Hobby centres do a great job, we will recruit lots of customers into our Hobby and they will enjoy spending their money on the products we make.

...

The games are a key part of both our Hobby and our business model. Our games are played between people present in a room (a Hobby centre, a club, a school), not with a screen. They are truly social and build a real sense of community and comradeship. This again makes good business sense. The more fun and enjoyable we make our games, the more customers we attract and retain, and the more miniatures our customers want to buy. This in turn allows us to reinvest in making more and more exciting miniatures and games, which creates a virtuous circle for all.

We are also clear that we will only make fantasy miniatures, not historical ones. Fantasy miniatures from our own Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 worlds allow us unlimited scope for product innovation. In addition, we can, and do, defend our intellectual property rigorously against imitators, thus ensuring that our worlds are synonymous with quality.

So the takeaway:

1. They're only interested in making fantasy miniatures and games for them.
2. Games are important to their concept of the hobby
3. Computer games are not envisioned as a core part of their business (ie no screen)
4. Their "virtuous circle" is all about attracting and retaining customers to buy more miniatures so that they can make more miniatures and games
5. They don't consider their retail stores... retail... but rather a recruitment center for customers, which is only important in that they probably don't ever have to be profitable as a business unit, in GW's eyes.

And if you didn't catch it, they consider miniatures the core part of their business. Like, 1-line mission statement at the top.

It doesn't matter if we don't agree with any of it; it's how GW perceives and defines itself. They'd be a company with a different focus, for example, if their top-line missions statement was, "We write the best fantasy wargames in the world and make miniatures for them." It also jives with my assertion that GW has no intention under its current mission and leadership to expand beyond its niche of scifi/fantasy miniatures and games for them (for example, into RPGs, CCGs, movies, etc.), although of course, they will continue to license the IP out to others to do so. Making fantasy miniatures is what they "love to do" (as I put it), and that's what they want to keep doing; everything else they do is in support of that.

A Does anybody believe this statement?
B Does anybody believe GW higher ups believe it?
C If the above are a yes, why they do everything in their hands to not do what they state in their business model?

@PsychoticStorm -

Well, I certainly believe that :

1. GW is a company that wants to make what it believes are the best fantasy miniatures (obviously, that's subjective), and make as much profit as it can doing so.

2. The game is a central part of selling the miniatures. Keep in mind, I'm not saying the tournament or pickup game, or whatever game people imagine that 40k should be. But, the game of 40k is important to the selling of 40k miniatures.

3. Also, the purpose of the games are to sell miniatures, which is something important people should understand, because if that's reversed, it changes everything (if the purpose of miniatures is to sell games). It means that for a lot of people, 40k just won't be the right game, because the purpose of the game isn't to be the best game that it can be; the purpose of the game is to do everything possible to maximize miniature sales..

4. GW isn't going to get into anything other than making miniatures and writing games for them any time soon.

Keep in mind that just because some of us might think we can do things better or they'd be more profitable if they just did something else, or sold things more cheaply, or wrote better rules, or whatever, we could be wrong. After all, NEVER would I have guessed that a $500 Smaug would be their BEST selling model -- more than space marines, or anything else.

For that matter, at least half the top 28 sellers, I would have said, "Not a chance!" to, so shows you what I know (it still blows my mind that toxicrene and baneblades are there, lol). It's still fun to speculate, though, and it's a decent way to pass time when I'm multitasking

@Talys,

A $500 model being a top seller could also indicate extreme downward pressure on sales volume. We sold 1000, $500 models for $500,000 could indicate that the models on the list below that really performed poorly.

I can't recall but was Smaug limited release?

 agnosto wrote:
@Talys,

A $500 model being a top seller could also indicate extreme downward pressure on sales volume. We sold 1000, $500 models for $500,000 could indicate that the models on the list below that really performed poorly.

I can't recall but was Smaug limited release?

JamesY mentioned in the top28 thread that the first batch of 200 (the limited December run) was sold in 5 minutes, and staff weren't allowed discounts, and then they did more batches starting January, and the second and third batches instantly sold out too. You can buy it now, too.

If you do the math, it's arithmetically impossible for GW to only have sold 1,000 smaugs, because if we assume that most of GW's revenue is in models, the'd have to have hundreds of kits that sold as well as their best selling lit to reach GBP 119m. Plus, imperial knight is 1/3 the price, and I don't think anyone believes GW sold just 3000 IKs in 2015.

Whatever the number is, the profit on Smaug must have been really awesome.

Except we still don't know the criteria for the "top selling."

3000 Knights? Nope. 3000 Knights through the website, or even the direct channel in its entirety, at full RRP?

Much more plausible.

 keezus wrote:
Maybe the "collectors" only order online and don't come into the stores. I have seen zero evidence of people purchasing GW product with zero intents to play it.

What evidence are you looking for? I don't know every person who walks in to the local shop to buy stuff, I see a lot of people come in and buy stuff and then never see them in the store or local clubs playing a game (or at least back in the day when I followed the local 40k scene), goodness knows what they do with the models after buying them.

I used 1000 as an example; without hard data, I'm not married to it. This does lend credence to the assumption of total intake per model rather than volume of models sold for that list...that's still a biased way to look at it because it takes so many more kits of devastators sold to equal 1 smaug making it not a true representation of a model's popularity which is generally how other companies handle such lists.

 Talys wrote:

 keezus wrote:
Maybe the "collectors" only order online and don't come into the stores. I have seen zero evidence of people purchasing GW product with zero intents to play it.

Well, if you pop open a Visions, you'll see clearly that some models aren't meant for game play -- all those in dioramas or mounted onto display plinths, but also a lot of the really pretty ones are unlikely to ever see a game table. And obviously contest entries.

I just feel the need to point out here that I do dioramas, and I love painting for local comps, but I still game. Not with the models I buy to paint to the best of my ability, but it would be completly wrong to say I am a painter, not a gamer.

My roomate is the same, as are the other guys that enter the local GW painting comps, and the Slayer Sword winner I know from my FLGS.

Just because someone makes a diorama doesn't mean they are buying all their models just to paint.

@jonolikespie - I may have misunderstood keezus.

When he said, "I have seen zero evidence of people purchasing GW product with zero intents to play it." I took that to mean that he's never observed someone ever buying GW product with no intention of playing it (not even one person with one model).

That seems a little extreme, as I'm pretty sure there must be some people at every store who buy at least the occasional GW model just because they want to model them (with no intention of ever playing them). But maybe he means that he's never observed people who generally buy GW product, but don't ever intend to play GW game.

To which I'd say, well, we have at least one... jah-joshua buys books and paints models and doesn't want to play any of them I actually know a few people here, locally, who only model in the GW, PP, and historical realms. But I think that a pretty good chunk of GW hobbyists have tried playing some GW game at some point. Likewise, I think the vast majority of 40k gamers actually regard their models as more than game counters and have some affinity towards the miniatures as part of the miniature collection.

I totally agree with you that guys who make dioramas aren't all just buying all their models for just painting. After all, I'm one of 'em who likes both

I understand the logic of writing a game to sell the figures.

I don't understand why the game(s) shouldn't be written to appeal to more people, to sell even more figures.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Except we still don't know the criteria for the "top selling."

3000 Knights? Nope. 3000 Knights through the website, or even the direct channel in its entirety, at full RRP?

Much more plausible.

Yeah, if they sold 1000 Smaugs and less than 3000 Knights through the website, that would imply less than 21,000 Knights in total, I think that's a more realistic number. That means they sold up to around £2 mill worth of Knights (at MSRP) and the Knights were up to around 1.5% revenue (lot's of "up to around" because it could obviously be less than that and it's just rough guesstimates).

Could be more, I don't imagine that they wouldn't include wholesale units sold to distributors and to independents at discount on top of full price direct sales.

 notprop wrote:
Could be more, I don't imagine that they wouldn't include wholesale units sold to distributors and to independents at discount on top of full price direct sales.

I suspect that really depends on whether those are booked into the same system or not.

We don't know, so it's another example of how the ranking is fairly meaningless.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We don't know, so it's another example of how the ranking is fairly meaningless.

On the other hand, the ranking could underline that collecting models is very big. Playing Smaug is meaningless.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We don't know, so it's another example of how the ranking is fairly meaningless.

On the other hand, the ranking could underline that collecting models is very big. Playing Smaug is meaningless.

It could also mean that they were just using data from their webstore since Smaug's an exclusive, right? I don't recall the exact number but I think that the webstore only accounts for about 30% of overall sales.

As Killkrazy stated, it's all meaningless without knowing what basis they used for the ranking system.

I know of at least one guy who played Smaug in a tournament. He lost it to Uruk Hai and Crossbows.

 agnosto wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We don't know, so it's another example of how the ranking is fairly meaningless.

On the other hand, the ranking could underline that collecting models is very big. Playing Smaug is meaningless.

It could also mean that they were just using data from their webstore since Smaug's an exclusive, right? I don't recall the exact number but I think that the webstore only accounts for about 30% of overall sales.

As Killkrazy stated, it's all meaningless without knowing what basis they used for the ranking system.

True. And this is also my guess.

 agnosto wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We don't know, so it's another example of how the ranking is fairly meaningless.

On the other hand, the ranking could underline that collecting models is very big. Playing Smaug is meaningless.

It could also mean that they were just using data from their webstore since Smaug's an exclusive, right? I don't recall the exact number but I think that the webstore only accounts for about 30% of overall sales.

As Killkrazy stated, it's all meaningless without knowing what basis they used for the ranking system.

It's ~40/40/20 wholesale/stores/online. But that 20 includes FW and BL. At least that was the breakdown the last time I figured it out.

Did they calculate the wholesale products as sold at full GW retail price when they are sold to the retailer? Someone in an earlier post speculated that the trade sales may or may not go through the same recording system as retail sales. If not, it clearly affects the quality of the data.

I'm not saying Smaug didn't sell well, but there is a danger of making a lot of conclusions from a set of information that doesn't have supporting data and a methodology to look at.

After all, this whole ranking was just done as a fun Advent Calendar kind of feature.