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Maybe the stupidest part of policies like this is that they don't even work. GW has a much more draconian policy and I can still buy Deathwatch Overkill for 20% off MSRP from eBay stores. These kinds of policies just antagonize people and don't actually stop the discount stores from existing.

After speaking to several local FLGS owners, I can tell you exactly why this happened.

PP has always supported the FLGS. They only sell their tournament and league kits to stores. But those same stores are losing a lot of sales to these steeply discounted online only/mostly online retailers. Those store owners have been kvetching to PP for years about how cannibalized their sales are getting.

I don't know of a single FLGS I've been to that can match the 60% sale levels Miniature Market has been doing lately. PP had to respond, as accounts are being closed by retailers across the country.

PP isn't cutting off the online only retailers entirely, they're just evening the playing field. If you have no FLGS, you'll still be able to order online. You're just likely to only get the 10-20% discount FLGS players get, not the 60% you're used to. People act like they are shutting down retailers and saying 'B&M Only', which is patently false. They are just helping make sure their customers (stores, not players) have a fair shake at your dollar. Opinions about the products being overpriced etc etc are subjective and don't warrant response.

This is pretty much industry standard for sporting equipment, video games, and niche markets (ANS Gear, a paintball retailer, just got slapped on the hand for dipping below MSRP). This happens across all markets to prevent the death of the small retailer. The overall language may have been aggressive, but the idea isn't new or evil.

60% discount? You are talking about overstock clearances, not what sites like Miniature Market offer every day of the year. I don't even know what you could possibly be referring to in terms of the video game industry and preventing the death of the small retailer ...

 Manchu wrote:
60% discount? You are talking about overstock clearances, not what sites like Miniature Market offer every day of the year. I don't even know what you could possibly be referring to in terms of the video game industry and preventing the death of the small retailer ...

Video games were more an example of specific pricing with limited discount % across most retailers, though yes, they don't really protect the small retailer. Poor example on my behalf.

And those overstock clearances have become a LOT more common. It used to be a black friday thing, now it's every three months or so I have a new email about a gigantic sale, so they aren't exactly rare.

Yeah, 60% is not standard discount anywhere. Miniature Market's higher discounts are only on deal-of-the-day time-limited sales or on older stuff they're clearancing out. They're closer to 25% on the bulk of PP stuff.

Video games are really not a good example, since Amazon Prime now gives 20% off on newly released games.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Yeah, 60% is not standard discount anywhere. Miniature Market's higher discounts are only on deal-of-the-day time-limited sales or on older stuff they're clearancing out. They're closer to 25% on the bulk of PP stuff.

Video games are really not a good example, since Amazon Prime now gives 20% off on newly released games.

I addressed both points in my second post.

LOL, 60% discount as normal.

Lay down the pipe dude.

MM just had a massive overstock sale. I was snapping up Infinity for 50% off.

It's over.

Go home.

Except the Magazine i haven't bought any PP mini's in Years, they are just as expensive as GW and the plastic stuff quality is not that great, I bet the next attack will be on the Chinese re-casters as people have difficulty getting the official stuff, some of them will drop the game and others will try to get it from other channels IMHO.

It sound like a steamjack punch to the foot

 TalonZahn wrote:
LOL, 60% discount as normal.

Lay down the pipe dude.

MM just had a massive overstock sale. I was snapping up Infinity for 50% off.

It's over.

Go home.

Yes, I clearly stated that 60% is normal. All the time.

What I said was, the 60% people are used to. I know for a long time when I was in-between play groups I only purchased during these massive sales Miniature Market was doing. So that's what I became used to. This isn't some abstract comment. If they lay off the overstock clearance, they're likely to see no delay in their product receiving times like PP has warned, as I don't find their normal discount that out of sync with most retailers.

From DGIs facebook post, it seems 10% will be the norm they're enforcing. What happens then if 10% fails to help the B&M stores? Will PP decide to try and enforce having no discounts at all?

Sining wrote:
From DGIs facebook post, it seems 10% will be the norm they're enforcing. What happens then if 10% fails to help the B&M stores? Will PP decide to try and enforce having no discounts at all?

Unlikely, but it's possible. Then again we can't light torches for something that hasn't happened yet.

10% is what I see from most FLGS, though I've been to a few that are lower.

Well that hyperbolic claim does bring up another, more grounded issue - as publishers insist on discount caps (and equivalent policies), I can see retailers becoming even more adverse to stocking anything but (a) small quantities and (b) only the most popular/anticipated items. That will work out fine for larger companies that already control a large share of the market and can afford popular licenses/own established IPs. But it will also make it that much harder for start ups, which is a handy way to fend off future competitors. This will also end up making the LGS more dependent on the big name publishers and therefore the LGS less likely to invest time and money stocking and marketing games like DropZone Commander or SAGA or Bolt Action, etc etc etc.

 Manchu wrote:
Well that hyperbolic claim does bring up another, more grounded issue - as publishers insist on discount caps (and equivalent policies), I can see retailers becoming even more adverse to stocking anything but (a) small quantities and (b) only the most popular/anticipated items. That will work out fine for larger companies that already control a large share of the market and can afford popular licenses or control established IPs. But it will also make it that much harder for start ups, which is a handy way to fend off future competitors. This will also end up making the LGS more dependent on the big name publishers and therefore the LGS less likely to invest time and money stocking and marketing games like DropZone Commander or SAGA or Bolt Action, etc etc etc.

Do you find LGSs more likely to go out of their way now to stock new and upcoming games now? Because kickstarter/direct sales/online discounts seem to already be pulling the drive out of B&M stores to stock them around here. Strong, already built player bases are the only consistent cause for a store picking up a new line. That's not all cases, but seems to be the trend.

Of course, YMMV.

My local tried to stock PP new releases as an entry point for them, and they sat and sat.
A lot less impulse buying from serious PP players, they know what works for their armies and don't touch anything else.

The LGS near me started carrying Bolt Action over the last year. They did well but only thanks to one of their customers who volunteered as a "Warlord Sarge" (like a PP Pressganger). This guy did all the leg work, from running the social media and organizing competitive and pick-up play plus demo events to selling the product and keeping the player base coherent and excited. The actual LGS staff did little to nothing and even occasionally talked the game down in front of players. Eventually, the Sarge moved on to other interests and that customer base pretty well evaporated.

The point of that story is that - again - I think brick'n'mortar is currently a failing/failed business model. The internet does everything the LGS traditionally did (and better) EXCEPT of course hosting the physical space required for tabletop gaming. And LGS entrepreneurs have so far not figured out an efficient and competitive way to monetize this, the last bit of value they can still add. By the way, it's not like this is an impossible task. But we don't exactly have the captains of industry running brick'n'mortar stores. A lot of store owners seems to think of it as an extension of their gaming hobby. Even those more inclined to pursuing profit have not innovated their way out of flagging against online retailers. The LGS owners need to figure out a way to compete - not demand that publishers create policies to force consumers who do not even patronize a LGS to subsidize them. If Christian Peterson, Matt Wilson, or their peers had thought of how to run highly profitable gamestores, we wouldn't be talking about discount caps - we'd be talking about a national Asmodee/FFG retail chain elbowing out the LGS as surely as the online retailers.

 gunslingerpro wrote:
After speaking to several local FLGS owners, I can tell you exactly why this happened.

PP has always supported the FLGS. They only sell their tournament and league kits to stores. But those same stores are losing a lot of sales to these steeply discounted online only/mostly online retailers. Those store owners have been kvetching to PP for years about how cannibalized their sales are getting.

I don't know of a single FLGS I've been to that can match the 60% sale levels Miniature Market has been doing lately. PP had to respond, as accounts are being closed by retailers across the country.

PP isn't cutting off the online only retailers entirely, they're just evening the playing field. If you have no FLGS, you'll still be able to order online. You're just likely to only get the 10-20% discount FLGS players get, not the 60% you're used to. People act like they are shutting down retailers and saying 'B&M Only', which is patently false. They are just helping make sure their customers (stores, not players) have a fair shake at your dollar. Opinions about the products being overpriced etc etc are subjective and don't warrant response.

This is pretty much industry standard for sporting equipment, video games, and niche markets (ANS Gear, a paintball retailer, just got slapped on the hand for dipping below MSRP). This happens across all markets to prevent the death of the small retailer. The overall language may have been aggressive, but the idea isn't new or evil.

It's not new and it's not evil, but that doesn't make it a good idea as far as consumers are concerned and nor does it mean folk should just lie down and take it without kicking up a fuss.

My "dollar" is mine, to spend where I bloody well please, and like Manchu I'm completely uninterested in paying what amounts to a tax on my purchases to support a business model that I don't use and which doesn't benefit me in any way.

Not being new and/or evil also doesn't mean it will be effective - as far as I can see the primary results of GW's increasingly inept war on the internet have been a big surge in startups offering new miniature games and an explosion in illegal rescasting: if PP decide to throw their hat into that same ring, trying to prop up a failed business model from the last century by demanding subsidy from non-FLGS-using gamers, I'm sure they'll be able to look forward to the same outcome, only this time it will occur more rapidly(since the practice is already fairly common knowledge today relative to a few years ago when GW began dumping on its fans in earnest). That's not an endorsement, merely an acknowledgement of reality.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's interesting to read about the US situation. How is playing organized over there? In Germany, a lot of people play in clubs, either at a FLGS or, as in our case, in an own location. The FLGS, or the ones I can speak for, are very interested in keeping people and support local tournaments. They know that they cannot compete with online prices and thus, they try to bind people by other means. They host a lot of tournaments, people attend and people buy there. A lot of them do well, but at the same time, they really do a lot for their customers. Some don't do well despite being active and the main problem is that a medium-sized city cannot hold more than 1 or 2 stores.

tl;dr: FLGS need to make people /want/ to go there in order to make them /buy/ there.

Here FLGS tend to operate like a charity, infact, most small businesses do. citing stuff like "Buy so I can support my family" and "Help me keep the lights on" and so forth.
They yse guilt trips to keep ya, not real business practices.

And many customers play along with the family/charity model, coming and taking up game space without ever buying anything at the store, using the store as a 3D catalog for their later online purchases, some even bragging about how they're getting their stuff much cheaper than the owner can sell it.

It's a full on comedy.

I think that part of the problem is too many game stores want to get by barely stocking anything and relying on what is essentially a charity by providing a place to play. In this day and age, and it has been true for many years now, you need to provide more then just a place to play and paying lip service to the game with little or no discount especially as prices rise. If you ask me, if a FLGS wants to compete with online prices they need to do more than just say I have gaming tables.

Having been around when GW first did their pricing restrictions, before the pants on head stupid blocking online stores from even listing the products, I feel this is a mistake that will bite privateer in the ass eventually. It has already caused a lot of bad PR, including references to GW itself, and I fear that they are walking down a dangerous path even if they don't go full on hostile like GW did so many years ago, the damage may already be done and already pissed people off

Sounds a lot like my local stores. Not enough people to organise events for anything but the most profitable lines.

 privateer4hire wrote:
It's a full on comedy.

I entirely agree. The model is dysfunctional all the way around and publisher policies that keep it on life support are therefore absurd. I really suspect this is not ultimately about supporting the LGS so much as trying to stamp out the online retailer, at which point the publisher can get into the online retail business with little to no serious competition. It's called the GW playbook.

 privateer4hire wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's interesting to read about the US situation. How is playing organized over there? In Germany, a lot of people play in clubs, either at a FLGS or, as in our case, in an own location. The FLGS, or the ones I can speak for, are very interested in keeping people and support local tournaments. They know that they cannot compete with online prices and thus, they try to bind people by other means. They host a lot of tournaments, people attend and people buy there. A lot of them do well, but at the same time, they really do a lot for their customers. Some don't do well despite being active and the main problem is that a medium-sized city cannot hold more than 1 or 2 stores.

tl;dr: FLGS need to make people /want/ to go there in order to make them /buy/ there.

Here FLGS tend to operate like a charity, infact, most small businesses do. citing stuff like "Buy so I can support my family" and "Help me keep the lights on" and so forth.
They yse guilt trips to keep ya, not real business practices.

And many customers play along with the family/charity model, coming and taking up game space without ever buying anything at the store, using the store as a 3D catalog for their later online purchases, some even bragging about how they're getting their stuff much cheaper than the owner can sell it.

It's a full on comedy.

Boo hoo?

I'm sure at some stage someone will explain why a business model deserves to survive if it can't weather a small percentage of their customer base being inconsiderate gits(because that problem is totes unique to this sector ), or why folk in rural areas or who's FLGS is so rubbish they don't use it should be punished for the behaviour of said gits which has nothing to do with them, or why folk who don't even live in places that rely on the FLGS model to support their communities(since there's no indication anywhere this is a NA-only policy) should have to pay more.

I'll wait.

Businesses like Wayland, Miniature Market, and CoolStuffInc (not to mention Amazon) have proven that online sales can be extremely profitable. Publishers like GW wanted in on that action. GW's first step was tighter controls on how retailers could sell their products. Step 2 was moving significant portions of their lines to direct only sales. They leveraged their control of the supply as a publisher/distributor to take over the markets retailers created and maintained for them. Asmodee and PP don't have as much leverage as GW did, these guys don't have the current wherewithal to move a company-branded shop in right next to a LGS -- but they don't have to, the LGS is generally no threat (although there are bound to be some exceptions). This especially applies to FFG, who already makes the LGS compete against national chains like Barnes & Noble. In any case, just like GW, the goal here is to get in on that sweet online retail action. Their biggest competitor in doing so: uh surprise surprise Wayland, Miniature Market, and CoolStuffInc -- the dastardly "freeriders" and "parasites." I hope none of you are buying this crap about "supporting poor old mom and pop."

I'll be honest part of me hopes this is some cruel April Fool's joke. But I think if it was it would be something more ridiculous like opening a chain of stores. So sadly this looks to be true, and that bodes ill because GW started doing the same thing for the same reasons years ago and it only got progressively worse and then where we are today with them. This brings back very bad memories

 privateer4hire wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's interesting to read about the US situation. How is playing organized over there? In Germany, a lot of people play in clubs, either at a FLGS or, as in our case, in an own location. The FLGS, or the ones I can speak for, are very interested in keeping people and support local tournaments. They know that they cannot compete with online prices and thus, they try to bind people by other means. They host a lot of tournaments, people attend and people buy there. A lot of them do well, but at the same time, they really do a lot for their customers. Some don't do well despite being active and the main problem is that a medium-sized city cannot hold more than 1 or 2 stores.

tl;dr: FLGS need to make people /want/ to go there in order to make them /buy/ there.

Here FLGS tend to operate like a charity, infact, most small businesses do. citing stuff like "Buy so I can support my family" and "Help me keep the lights on" and so forth.
They yse guilt trips to keep ya, not real business practices.

And many customers play along with the family/charity model, coming and taking up game space without ever buying anything at the store, using the store as a 3D catalog for their later online purchases, some even bragging about how they're getting their stuff much cheaper than the owner can sell it.

It's a full on comedy.

Maybe the owner should consider something to stop them? Like IDK a ban maybe?

 Manchu wrote:
Well that hyperbolic claim does bring up another, more grounded issue - as publishers insist on discount caps (and equivalent policies), I can see retailers becoming even more adverse to stocking anything but (a) small quantities and (b) only the most popular/anticipated items. That will work out fine for larger companies that already control a large share of the market and can afford popular licenses/own established IPs. But it will also make it that much harder for start ups, which is a handy way to fend off future competitors. This will also end up making the LGS more dependent on the big name publishers and therefore the LGS less likely to invest time and money stocking and marketing games like DropZone Commander or SAGA or Bolt Action, etc etc etc.

Oh, that's already happened. We've long ago past the point where even distributors could carry everything game stores wanted.

And funny how nobody mentions that the OLGS carries products you couldn't get unless you WAITED for the LGS special order....

 Yodhrin wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's interesting to read about the US situation. How is playing organized over there? In Germany, a lot of people play in clubs, either at a FLGS or, as in our case, in an own location. The FLGS, or the ones I can speak for, are very interested in keeping people and support local tournaments. They know that they cannot compete with online prices and thus, they try to bind people by other means. They host a lot of tournaments, people attend and people buy there. A lot of them do well, but at the same time, they really do a lot for their customers. Some don't do well despite being active and the main problem is that a medium-sized city cannot hold more than 1 or 2 stores.

tl;dr: FLGS need to make people /want/ to go there in order to make them /buy/ there.

Here FLGS tend to operate like a charity, infact, most small businesses do. citing stuff like "Buy so I can support my family" and "Help me keep the lights on" and so forth.
They yse guilt trips to keep ya, not real business practices.

And many customers play along with the family/charity model, coming and taking up game space without ever buying anything at the store, using the store as a 3D catalog for their later online purchases, some even bragging about how they're getting their stuff much cheaper than the owner can sell it.

It's a full on comedy.

Boo hoo?

I'm sure at some stage someone will explain why a business model deserves to survive if it can't weather a small percentage of their customer base being inconsiderate gits(because that problem is totes unique to this sector ), or why folk in rural areas or who's FLGS is so rubbish they don't use it should be punished for the behaviour of said gits which has nothing to do with them, or why folk who don't even live in places that rely on the FLGS model to support their communities(since there's no indication anywhere this is a NA-only policy) should have to pay more.

I'll wait.

Boo hoo? Having to pay MSRP is so unfair that it's punishment.
Perhaps someone can explain that. I too will wait.

Yes - we need to keep in mind that MSRP/RRP takes into account value-adds along the distribution and sales channel.

What online retailers did was to compete in the margin between wholesale and MSRP/RRP by lowering their costs without a significant loss in value added to the end user, you and me. Consumers naturally loved this!

Meanwhile publishers naturally hated it - because they benefited (NOT the customer) from the middle men value-adds (e.g., marketing) lost in this competition.

But this did make publishers question whether the distributors and retailers really were worthwhile partners - or if they should just go straight to the customer. GW, a British firm with its own retail history that grew up with British club culture and that distributed its own product, was naturally the first publisher to really act on skepticism of the LGS.

To sum it up, what publishers want to do is make MSRP the only price rather than the "suggested" or "recommended" price and to keep all of what the distributors and retailers used to make.

The lie these publishers are now telling is that wholesale was intended to be a "discount" to help out brick'n'mortar retailers.

 Manchu wrote:
The LGS near me started carrying Bolt Action over the last year. They did well but only thanks to one of their customers who volunteered as a "Warlord Sarge" (like a PP Pressganger). This guy did all the leg work, from running the social media and organizing competitive and pick-up play plus demo events to selling the product and keeping the player base coherent and excited. The actual LGS staff did little to nothing and even occasionally talked the game down in front of players. Eventually, the Sarge moved on to other interests and that customer base pretty well evaporated.

The point of that story is that - again - I think brick'n'mortar is currently a failing/failed business model. The internet does everything the LGS traditionally did (and better) EXCEPT of course hosting the physical space required for tabletop gaming. And LGS entrepreneurs have so far not figured out an efficient and competitive way to monetize this, the last bit of value they can still add. By the way, it's not like this is an impossible task. But we don't exactly have the captains of industry running brick'n'mortar stores. A lot of store owners seems to think of it as an extension of their gaming hobby. Even those more inclined to pursuing profit have not innovated their way out of flagging against online retailers. The LGS owners need to figure out a way to compete - not demand that publishers create policies to force consumers who do not even patronize a LGS to subsidize them. If Christian Peterson, Matt Wilson, or their peers had thought of how to run highly profitable gamestores, we wouldn't be talking about discount caps - we'd be talking about a national Asmodee/FFG retail chain elbowing out the LGS as surely as the online retailers.

Yep. Your post makes a good point about organized play -- it's not very organized. It's basically an advertising model that uses *unpaid volunteers*. Volunteers will work hard to promote product, but can *poof* suddenly disappear, taking all support with them. Meanwhile, if the organized play is organized by the store, they don't have any particular commitment to the manufacturer. It doesn't matter to them if it's a PP league or Magic Friday Night they're running. Volunteers are certainly invaluable to manufacturers, but they should still be seen as fans, not workers. Nor should manufacturers expect the FLGS to support *their* product if it's not profitable.

Still, I do think LGS can succeed. Game Kastle and Gator Games are in the San Francisco Bay Area (high rent) for over twenty years, with GK opening its third store, so they're doing something right. But I certainly know they're providing services (eg. helping parents and running organized play event for Magic and Pokemon) that LGS do not or cannot do. I think stores like these should be studied by game manufacturers, rather than policies handed down to them.

Personally, I would separate out Asmodee's policy into another thread. Unlike miniatures wargaming, boardgames need the FLGS even less so than miniatures wargames. BoardGameGeek long ago made the store employee (and word of mouth) unnecessary for product information. The OLGS sold stuff. Meetup groups and Yahoo groups allowed gamers to meet in locations besides the FLGS. These three replaced the functions of the FLGS, leaving organized play the only service the FLGS has not available elsewhere. More importantly, though, hobby boardgames are appearing in Big Box stores, while miniature wargames are not. I believe Asmodee's policy to lower OLGS discounts is really to follow terms set by Walmart, Target, Barnes and Noble, and other Big Box stores who have their own webstores and do not want competition from the OLGS.

Short article/interview by the guy quoted in the article (who runs a really interesting blog about running a FLGS)

http://blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com/2016/03/parasitic-business-models-tradecraft.html

And after reading the above - I visited Amazon to see all these crazy WM deals he's talking about - and I don't see it ... I see some stuff around 35% off at best, but it tends to be older, unpopular stuff or things like the battleboxes that there is a glut of. Nothing that made me want to "pounce." And I'm prone to pouncing too - like I did a few weeks ago when Ruin was the MM deal of the day.

Considering he runs a LGS, he might also be biased