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MM is doing a daily deal on hordes scatter gunners. Also has a huge disclaimer at the bottom

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/pip71084.html

"Note: In an effort to prevent us from selling their products at our current discount, Privateer Press has threatened to delay our new item shipments to our distribution partners. As a result, there is a chance that new item purchases could be delayed by 7-14 days past their release date. We have no intentions of raising our prices or ceasing to carry Privateer Press products. Let your voice be heard by contacting Privateer Press directly at: http://privateerpress.com/contact"

The Warmachine players I know all shop from Miniature Market (there's no place in town to get them), and they seem pretty loyal to both of them. As far as they are concerned, Warmachine and Miniature Market are more or less two halves of the same whole. If this turns into a nasty divorce, I honestly don't know where their loyalties would end up.

That response is actually kind of hilarious. PP's whole plan kind of breaks down if enough big retailers just say no.

So far both Warstore and DGI have complied. Not sure what other big retailers there are for online discounts

Publishers are used to bullying the LGS. They are not used to pushing around a company with the market share of MM.

Sining wrote:
So far both Warstore and DGI have complied. Not sure what other big retailers there are for online discounts

It's basically the prisoner's dilemma. If MM stands firm and Warstore and DGI cave, MM eats their lunch. If all fold, PP gets their way. If all go back to offering a discount, I have a suspicion PP drops the policy or modifies it to be more draconian.

Right now MM is the best game in town, assuming you can deal w a 1-2 week delay. I don't know about your paint queue, but mine is way longer than that. Assuming I plan purchases, buying from MM impacts me very little. I don't play at a LGS, so really it is price that is my determining factor now.

I haven't been to The War Store in a while, but they've redesigned since I was there last. They now have these giant banners for the biggest games - but I notice that Warmachine isn't one of them. Click on Steampunk and you get Dystopian Wars and Malifaux. Click on Fantasy and Age of Sigmar shows up, and they can't even sell AoS stuff through their webstore. Has this always been the case, or am I just reading it as passive aggressive when it's just coincidence?

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

Sining wrote:
So far both Warstore and DGI have complied. Not sure what other big retailers there are for online discounts

It's basically the prisoner's dilemma. If MM stands firm and Warstore and DGI cave, MM eats their lunch. If all fold, PP gets their way. If all go back to offering a discount, I have a suspicion PP drops the policy or modifies it to be more draconian.

Right now MM is the best game in town, assuming you can deal w a 1-2 week delay. I don't know about your paint queue, but mine is way longer than that. Assuming I plan purchases, buying from MM impacts me very little. I don't play at a LGS, so really it is price that is my determining factor now.

Considering for my LGS to order from PP, it takes them about a month or two for the orders to arrive, I can deal with 1-2 weeks

I'd love to see the sales bump PP has just handed MM.

 Sqorgar wrote:
I haven't been to The War Store in a while, but they've redesigned since I was there last. They now have these giant banners for the biggest games - but I notice that Warmachine isn't one of them. Click on Steampunk and you get Dystopian Wars and Malifaux. Click on Fantasy and Age of Sigmar shows up, and they can't even sell AoS stuff through their webstore. Has this always been the case, or am I just reading it as passive aggressive when it's just coincidence?

They redesigned before the change, though I think they did drop the Warmahordes banner. Were I Neal, I certainly would push other games whose publishers arent fething with me. Higher margins only go so far when your sales are gutted.

Hopefully the folks at MM will form an alliance of sorts with the other stores that have been bullied. #corporatewarfare #firstworldproblems

 Manchu wrote:
Publishers are used to bullying the LGS. They are not used to pushing around a company with the market share of MM.

If PP tries to muscle MM I could see it blowing up in their faces.

 DrNo172000 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Publishers are used to bullying the LGS. They are not used to pushing around a company with the market share of MM.

If PP tries to muscle MM I could see it blowing up in their faces.

Absolutely.. honestly.. selling more of their stuff is the last thing I would do. If ALL of those places completely drop the products.. Just list them at cost and walk away, PP would be in a really really bad spot.

As much as i do support local game stores, I also am addicted to cheap online prices. This is the nature of the free market, if there is a more efficient way of getting goods to the consumer then it will be successful in the end. Gaming at the store is just one slice of many choices that include... a local gaming club that rents space, gaming in my own home or my friends, and attending events. And with cheap online prices i simply have far more stuff to play with and more games to play. If a game store can't afford to sell at a discount, well, they might be better off just providing a space to play and charging for that service, as well as providing food, drinks, etc. All of which I'm happy to pay for, rather than subsidize an inefficient system out of some sense of duty. Or maybe I'm just tired of paying prices higher than MSRP, when I know I could be saving all this money, and feel like I'm donating to a charity when I buy at my local store?

of course maybe i'm wrong, and once online discounters are punished then the game stores will profit and create so many more gamers that are happy to pay the higher prices. I doubt it. Case in point, Xwing's rise vs. 40k. Of which i will argue, xwing's availability on internet channels is a factor. A major complaint about 40k is prices (and i think it's equally important to complaints about rules, but really they go together)... a problem that might be mitigated if the discounters were allowed their way. Yeah i know, you can still get 40k for 20% off online. sure, but it is not quite deep enough to really stoke the flame, and harder to get in general. Correct me if I'm wrong... but if a company is selling MORE product and making more money... how is that bad? They really think that they will stop making money some time in the future? Well you can try.... sponsoring events? Supporting local game clubs? Hell, i can even play xwing at my local starbucks. it's not hard.

If MM stood up to Asmodee with all that sweet Star Wars Armada, X-Wing, etc. then that would be super impressive.
Asmodee has threatened to completely cut people off not just delay stuff.
Standing up to a threat of a delayed product is not as edgy.

I personally do not buy into the narrative that an LGS can't change it's model to a successful one that can compete in a fast growing market. If an LGS says it has a poor margin on PP products they are either lying through their teeth or have poor distributors. Most major distributors I know of give somewhere in the ballpark of 47-50% of cost on goods. That means close to a 100% markup at retail price. If you are savvy about events, demos, customer loyalty programs, and the rest of your overhead you can very easily sell these items at 20-30% off. And generally as price goes down volume goes up. So what's stopping an LGS that has received a bump in volume due to price decrease from expanding to online sells, even if you didn't want to go full tilt an Amazon or eBay store is easy and doesn't require you to have a professional webstore. No I agree with others who have said that LGSs need to adapt.

 Meade wrote:
...Hell, i can even play xwing at my local starbucks. it's not hard.

As a reformed game evangelist, I will say that this may be just a slight bit harder than 'not hard'.
But I would seriously love to see photos of X-Wing being played at Starbucks especially if you can get multiple games going.
If you/your family happen to own said Starbucks, points will obviously have to be deducted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DrNo172000 wrote:
I personally do not buy into the narrative that an LGS can't change it's model to a successful one that can compete in a fast growing market. If an LGS says it has a poor margin on PP products they are either lying through their teeth or have poor distributors. Most major distributors I know of give somewhere in the ballpark of 47-50% of cost on goods. That means close to a 100% markup at retail price. If you are savvy about events, demos, customer loyalty programs, and the rest of your overhead you can very easily sell these items at 20-30% off. And generally as price goes down volume goes up. So what's stopping an LGS that has received a bump in volume due to price decrease from expanding to online sells, even if you didn't want to go full tilt an Amazon or eBay store is easy and doesn't require you to have a professional webstore. No I agree with others who have said that LGSs need to adapt.

Essentially sounds like folks agree that if you don't live in a town of 250k population, then you need to join a club and buy all your stuff online.

 privateer4hire wrote:
Standing up to a threat of a delayed product is not as edgy.

 privateer4hire wrote:
Essentially sounds like folks agree that if you don't live in a town of 250k population, then you need to join a club and buy all your stuff online.

These remarks seem like ... nonsequiturs. Not sure what being "edgy" has to do with ... well, anything. Plus - do you really think that only places with 250k+ population merit competitive local business practices? Although I am kind of ... scratch that, I am completely suspicious of any poster who aims to drag this back to PP's Approved Official Party Line Message that they are just sticking up for poor ole mom and pop (is that an edgy enough stand?) when what we're really talking about is trying to squash online retailers to make room for a direct sales channel.

Honestly, I don't think OLGS-only buyers and FLGS customers can be reconciled on this. As long as OLGS can sell at maximum discount, that's all that matters. After all, OLGS is sticking up for the poor old consumer. That's their sole concern with their practices.

This is the same line of logic that people use when they dismiss FLGS customers/FLGSs.

Online retailers don't have to pretend to be standing up for the retail customer because anyone can see how the interests of both parties are aligned. This alignment is precisely what makes online retail so competitive.

If you pay retail then you are paying a premium price. Now - if you feel like you are getting something out of the LGS for that premium price, by all means shell out your dollars. Don't expect others to spend their money on your behalf, however.

And for certain do not expect me to pay MSRP or any other arbitrary amount resulting from a unilateral price-fixing policy just so publishers like PP can clock higher profits ... which again is the actual bottom line here, rather than anything to do with the LGS.

 Manchu wrote:
Online retailers don't have to pretend to be standing up for the retail customer because anyone can see how the interests of both parties are aligned. This alignment is precisely what makes online retail so competitive.

If you pay retail then you are paying a premium price. Now - if you feel like you are getting something out of the LGS for that premium price, by all means shell out your dollars. Don't expect others to spend their money on your behalf, however.

And for certain do not expect me to pay MSRP or any other arbitrary amount resulting from a unilateral price-fixing policy just so publishers like PP can clock higher profits ... which again is the actual bottom line here, rather than anything to do with the LGS.

I guess? How does PP get more money from online retailers
raising prices? Their take is fixed, and their only other direct
presence is via convention and online only exclusives. This
only makes more money for PP if the policy increases sales
volume.

Am I overlooking something?

Also, thewarstore totally has a banner for Warmachine under
Steampunk Miniatures.

 malfred wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Online retailers don't have to pretend to be standing up for the retail customer because anyone can see how the interests of both parties are aligned. This alignment is precisely what makes online retail so competitive.

If you pay retail then you are paying a premium price. Now - if you feel like you are getting something out of the LGS for that premium price, by all means shell out your dollars. Don't expect others to spend their money on your behalf, however.

And for certain do not expect me to pay MSRP or any other arbitrary amount resulting from a unilateral price-fixing policy just so publishers like PP can clock higher profits ... which again is the actual bottom line here, rather than anything to do with the LGS.

I guess? How does PP get more money from online retailers
raising prices? Their take is fixed, and their only other direct
presence is via convention and online only exclusives. This
only makes more money for PP if the policy increases sales
volume.

Am I overlooking something?

Also, thewarstore totally has a banner for Warmachine under
Steampunk Miniatures.

Direct Sales. PP wants to cut out the middle man and sell at the full price.

Have PP said if this affects UK and rest of Europe too? Assuming it does PP is boned. GW were and technically still are a big company and do whatever they please. Privateer on the other hand are tiny and have very little presence outside the U.S.
Cant get stuff online most months never mind in store unless you live in London as anywhere else is barren on lgs

Just screams idiotic

 malfred wrote:
Am I overlooking something?

I'm reading it as PP thinks the LGS is important for the long-term survival of ifs miniature gaming line because that's where customers play the game, and new customers are exposed to it.

PP and ANA say OLGS's decrease the "perceived value" of games through their sales, lowering the prices consumers are willing to pay for them. Many customers say bullsh*t because they don't play games at the LGS and/or think games should be sold at market rates, not at what manufacturers say they should be sold at.

 RivenSkull wrote:

Direct Sales. PP wants to cut out the middle man and sell at the full price.

Privateer Press doesn't do direct sales.

The reason why they put out the convoluted press release they did, instead of Asmodee's simpler "We're no longer giving discounts to online stores, and we're changing our sales terms" statement is because Privateer Press sells to distributors who then sell to the stores.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
That response is actually kind of hilarious. PP's whole plan kind of breaks down if enough big retailers just say no.

Ironically, I think ANA's policy *is* the result of big retailers -- that is, Target, Amazon, Walmart, and B&N telling ANA that they will not carry (more of) their products unless receive special treatment. Specifically, I think these Big Box companies want to sell more product online, and they see the OLGS as their competitor. "Protecting the FLGS" is a smokescreen that sounds *much* better than "We're bending over and taking it because TAmaWaBaNoble says so."

 malfred wrote:
Am I overlooking something?

And how!

For starters - why would PP do this if it didn't affect their bottom line? You are first and foremost overlooking that PP is a business. Next up, how exactly does unilaterally suppressing the competitiveness of online retailers help PP? There are two narratives:

First, there's the one about supporting the LGS: PP needs the LGS as a face-to-face point of sale and community host. The reasoning is, the LGS model grows and maintains PP's marketshare.

Second, there's the one about moving into online sales: Like GW before it, PP has learned from the success of online retailers that the LGS is actually not so crucial to its marketshare. In fact, the entire retail market has pivoted to online sales. As a publisher, you have the advantage of leveraging some control over supply - so you can use that to cap out potential competitors. This is how GW made their direct business the only business in town, including as it turned out by cutting the LGS out of the picture in significant ways. PP is not going to have as easy a time of it. You may recall how mad people were at GW - but they could do essentially nothing except refuse to stock GW product. This was because GW is its own distributor. Not so with PP. Hence MM being able to stand up to PP. I highly doubt MM's distributor has any interest in losing MM's volume.

 Manchu wrote:

 malfred wrote:
Am I overlooking something?

And how!

For starters - why would PP do this if it didn't affect their bottom line? You are first and foremost overlooking that PP is a business. Next up, how exactly does unilaterally suppressing the competitiveness of online retailers help PP? There are two narratives:

First, there's the one about supporting the LGS: PP needs the LGS as a face-to-face point of sale and community host. The reasoning is, the LGS model grows and maintains PP's marketshare.

Second, there's the one about moving into online sales: Like GW before it, PP has learned from the success of online retailers that the LGS is actually not so crucial to its marketshare. In fact, the entire retail market has pivoted to online sales. As a publisher, you have the advantage of leveraging some control over supply - so you can use that to cap out potential competitors. This is how GW made their direct business the only business in town, including as it turned out by cutting the LGS out of the picture in significant ways. PP is not going to have as easy a time of it. You may recall how mad people were at GW - but they could do essentially nothing except refuse to stock GW product. This was because GW is its own distributor. Not so with PP. Hence MM being able to stand up to PP. I highly doubt MM's distributor has any interest in losing MM's volume.

I wasn't overlooking that they were a business. I was following
narrative 1 and didn't see direct market as a possibility for them
in the future. That would change things, sure. However, I agree
that they would have a hard time of it in this market. There are
just way too many successful games out there for anyone to go
full GW , right?

Or have there been other moves toward the direct market?

 Meade wrote:
As much as i do support local game stores, I also am addicted to cheap online prices. This is the nature of the free market, if there is a more efficient way of getting goods to the consumer then it will be successful in the end. Gaming at the store is just one slice of many choices that include... a local gaming club that rents space, gaming in my own home or my friends, and attending events. And with cheap online prices i simply have far more stuff to play with and more games to play. If a game store can't afford to sell at a discount, well, they might be better off just providing a space to play and charging for that service, as well as providing food, drinks, etc. All of which I'm happy to pay for, rather than subsidize an inefficient system out of some sense of duty. Or maybe I'm just tired of paying prices higher than MSRP, when I know I could be saving all this money, and feel like I'm donating to a charity when I buy at my local store?

That model for a store has been tried and has failed ( charging to play, food and drinks) because if gamers aren't going to pay full price for product, they won't pay for a table, food or drinks. I've seen it happen time and again. Gamers would leave and go to 7-11 fo $1 hot dogs. This is why pool halls eventually failed...people would rather play at home or a cheap bar than support the pool hall through beer and food purchases.

The greed of gamers always amazes me. They want their toys as cheap as possible, but won't support the venues that provide places to play. The "entitlement" attitude saddens me.

The first game store I worked at 20? 15? years ago used to run Mechwarrior tournaments. Players would order cases from someplace with a 30% discount, then show up and play and win prize money etc from the store...and the store owner was like, why am I supporting other businesses with my tournaments and tables? and Mechwarrior Monday became Magic Monday. The same thing eventually happened with 40K. They eventually dropped the lines because sales were so low.

When I worked in the industry, time and again we saw the same thing happen and heard the same complaints from FLGS's, that they could not compete with online discounters.

 malfred wrote:
Or have there been other moves toward the direct market?

Zoom out for a moment to the full scope of retail. The cat is out of the bag. We are never going back to a world without online sales or even where online sales matter less than they do now. Miniatures companies know this. If they didn't learn it from online retailers they will have had to take notice of Kickstarter ... which is of course a very advanced form of direct sales. And one that PP has actually already used. Interestingly, some of the more amateurish companies have found themselves better positioned for this reality than companies like PP. Many manufacturers of historical miniatures, for example, have always been primarily responsible for their own distribution. The grandaddy of them all, Games Workshop, is in a similar position thanks to the same reason -- it's old enough to have been built around its own distribution system. PP and its ilk, meanwhile, seem to have been built around third-party distributor models that were probably even outdated at that time (see the vid with Ed Pugh, posted earlier). These guys are caught relying on a failing business partner, the LGS. Obviously, part of PP's answer is to cap out online retailers to shore up the LGS. That's a short term strategy. It can only be short term because, again, the future of sales is online, not in independant, brick'n'mortar retailers (who cannot even afford to carry your whole line). The long term strategy must be to get into online sales. The most cost-intensive but also most profitable way would be a gradual shift to direct, which I will bet is exactly what we will (continue to) see.

General Hobbs wrote:
The greed of gamers always amazes me. They want their toys as cheap as possible, but won't support the venues that provide places to play.

LOL that's a good one. We're talking about businesses, which owe their existence to capacity to earn profit, but of course it is the customer who gets called out as greedy. There is nothing even slightly immoral about customers wanting to maximize the value they get out of a transaction. This is exactly what publishers, distributors, and retailers are doing, after all. It is up to the LGS to figure out how to make the brick'n'mortar model competitive -- not the customer.