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Fear of Missing Out.

I've been noticing for a while that a lot of the GW releases seem to have elements of the idea of FOMO in them. Look at DI. The Captain, Lieutenants, The Ancient never got a box release and so far, there is no indication that they will. From Shadowspear, we still haven't seen a kit for Suppressors or Obliterators, including the Possessed or the Sorcerer. With this new set coming, we're told that it's a limited run, and I can already see the same thing potentially happening. The characters might not ever get a release, though, maybe they will.

It all got me wondering, do you think that GW is capitalizing on FOMO in order to drive sales?

No, I think they have extremely limited production hampered by a once a century pandemic and a shortened release window.

All this stuff will get their own kits in time.

The aformentioned Captain (the Gravis one from DI) is also in the Know No Fear starter. Primaris Lieutenants of various types are widely available beyond those two. All of the Chaos stuff from Shadowspear has been turned into the new Start Collecting: Chaos Space Marines. Suppressors are in Start Collecting: Vanguard Primaris Space Marines, along with the Eliminators, Infiltrators and Phobos Lieutenant from Shadowspear. Of all the models you mentioned, only the Primaris Ancient has not been released separately in some form, and honestly it's not that hard to just kitbash one yourself.

I wouldn't worry too much.

There was enough time between shadowspear and the pandemic to release those minis.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
No, I think they have extremely limited production hampered by a once a century pandemic and a shortened release window.

You just ignored all the examples the OP gave. Most of what they mentioned has nothing to do with their recent shutdown.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The aformentioned Captain (the Gravis one from DI) is also in the Know No Fear starter.

And you think that's sticking around once 9th hits?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
No, I think they have extremely limited production hampered by a once a century pandemic and a shortened release window.

You just ignored all the examples the OP gave. Most of what they mentioned has nothing to do with their recent shutdown.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The aformentioned Captain (the Gravis one from DI) is also in the Know No Fear starter.

And you think that's sticking around once 9th hits?

It's amazing, it's like they know exactly what I am saying, but out of some need to argue they ignore it.

So for the first couple of posters, let me restate.

I cannot walk into a GW store or an FLGS and get:

Generic Primaris Lieutenant
Generic Banner Man
Obliterators
Suppressors
Gravis Captain
Greater Possessed
SP Sorcerer

To reiterate. I cannot buy JUST ONE of these models in its own box. So far, nothing has shown this to be something that will change. As it stands they are only available in SC boxes (as some of you mentioned) or in their original packaging bundled with a ton of other miniatures I might not want.

In the EG (Electronic Gaming) world, FOMO has been used to drive sales and force players into buying expensive "starter sets" or "Limited Edition" box kits that sell for far more than just getting the basic game. It does appear, that GW has been doing this with their recent release.

Also, get out of here with the pandemic , all of what I mentioned is over 14 months old and some it is nearly three years old at this point. COVID-19 has nothing to do with this.

Tone down the argumentative, man!

Yes, GW expressly taps into FOMO to drive sales. That is self-evident and proven by how last limited sets sell out/salt witnessed when they do.

GW plays to FOMO to some degree.

I bought 3E Space Hulk as soon as I saw it because I knew finding it at cost would be impossible - and that turned out to be the case for, I want to say, at least two years.

I also remember the difficulty folks mentioned getting Shadow War: Armaggedon, for example. And the initial release of the Void Shield generator.

Mostly, it's the two-army boxed sets. I dislike GW's pricing to a great deal, but I know that if I *do* want one, I'd better preorder or risk not being able to get it at all a few months down the road.

 Stormonu wrote:
GW plays to FOMO to some degree.

I bought 3E Space Hulk as soon as I saw it because I knew finding it at cost would be impossible - and that turned out to be the case for, I want to say, at least two years.

I also remember the difficulty folks mentioned getting Shadow War: Armaggedon, for example. And the initial release of the Void Shield generator.

Mostly, it's the two-army boxed sets. I dislike GW's pricing to a great deal, but I know that if I *do* want one, I'd better preorder or risk not being able to get it at all a few months down the road.

So my question is then, does this FOMO really work.

Let's say 100 people are ready to pay $$ for your product. You make a limited supply and only 60 of those players get it because that's all there was. So the other 40 get nothing, and you get nothing from them. How does this make sense?

It makes sense because you get a guaranteed income and no stock sat on shelves unsold. Everyone paid more for the eg Primaris half because they bought the Marine half too, so basket spend is higher. Then you make the next limited set...

Limited editions are a tried-and-tested moneyspinner and GW sure loves them. And they’re working, if annual reports and share price are anything to go by (which they are).

 Togusa wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
No, I think they have extremely limited production hampered by a once a century pandemic and a shortened release window.

You just ignored all the examples the OP gave. Most of what they mentioned has nothing to do with their recent shutdown.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The aformentioned Captain (the Gravis one from DI) is also in the Know No Fear starter.

And you think that's sticking around once 9th hits?

It's amazing, it's like they know exactly what I am saying, but out of some need to argue they ignore it.

So for the first couple of posters, let me restate.

I cannot walk into a GW store or an FLGS and get:

Generic Primaris Lieutenant
Generic Banner Man
Obliterators
Suppressors
Gravis Captain
Greater Possessed
SP Sorcerer

To reiterate. I cannot buy JUST ONE of these models in its own box. So far, nothing has shown this to be something that will change. As it stands they are only available in SC boxes (as some of you mentioned) or in their original packaging bundled with a ton of other miniatures I might not want.

You've never heard of EBay etc I take it.
You can get everything on your list, individually, without extra models you don't want/need & often for prices not dissimilar to what GW'd charge you (if they ever packed these singly).

ccs 789376 10837565 wrote:

You've never heard of EBay etc I take it.
You can get everything on your list, individually, without extra models you don't want/need & often for prices not dissimilar to what GW'd charge you (if they ever packed these singly).

only on ebay you are paying scalping prices for stuff, and not even your local ones, you pay the price that is scalping for buyers from US or UK, or who ever is willing to pay the most.
We are having a blast right , because someone is trying to sell the IG Lt for 113$, he is getting a lot of people asking how much the foil from the box costs.

ccs wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
No, I think they have extremely limited production hampered by a once a century pandemic and a shortened release window.

You just ignored all the examples the OP gave. Most of what they mentioned has nothing to do with their recent shutdown.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The aformentioned Captain (the Gravis one from DI) is also in the Know No Fear starter.

And you think that's sticking around once 9th hits?

It's amazing, it's like they know exactly what I am saying, but out of some need to argue they ignore it.

So for the first couple of posters, let me restate.

I cannot walk into a GW store or an FLGS and get:

Generic Primaris Lieutenant
Generic Banner Man
Obliterators
Suppressors
Gravis Captain
Greater Possessed
SP Sorcerer

To reiterate. I cannot buy JUST ONE of these models in its own box. So far, nothing has shown this to be something that will change. As it stands they are only available in SC boxes (as some of you mentioned) or in their original packaging bundled with a ton of other miniatures I might not want.

You've never heard of EBay etc I take it.
You can get everything on your list, individually, without extra models you don't want/need & often for prices not dissimilar to what GW'd charge you (if they ever packed these singly).

Jesus dude, are you guys not paying attention?
I AM TALKING ABOUT GW LITERALLY NOT PUTTING SPECIFIC MODELS INTO BLISTERS IN ORDER TO FORCE THOSE WHO WANT THEM TO BUY EXPENSIVE BOX SETS. I AM AWARE THAT YOU CAN BUY THESE MODELS ON EBAY. I AM AWARE. THE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION HERE IS "ARE THEY DOING THIS ON PURPOSE TO DRIVE SALES?"

Yes. Of course they are.

Look at the releases for this month alone. Who has that kind of money to drop on all of that? "bUt YoU cAn BuY iT lAtEr!" they will say, well yes- but some cannot. GW want you to buy all of that, because there's even more coming next month in even more super limited edition boxes.

And more after that, and more after that. etc. They know exactly what they are doing as this is what this hobby has degraded into now, it's just showing off boxes of gak for the approval of strangers, and certain social media sites lap it up, thus enabling them (both GW and the idiots who feel the need to drop all their cash on them every month).

Wow. I mean, someone literally offered a solution (you can buy things parted out) and you’ve dismissed it because, er, that way you don’t get to work yourself into a frothing rage about GW? Probably just quit the hobby if it’s causing you this sort of consternation; it can’t be good for you.

I would imagine that the highest sales for any given GW product are upon release and shortly thereafter. It thus makes sense to constantly push out new products to capitalise on this trend.

Limited production runs assist this by injecting some urgency to buy early into the customer base, but also to free up capacity and resources for the production and marketing of new products.

I'd wager high sales for GW product come at key moments:

1) When a kit is brand new

2) When an army gets a major update

3) When a new Codex is released



Note that some of this might depend on many things. Eg core infantry models might well get multiple sales spikes, especially if an army goes into a period of reduced popularity and marketing and then gets a new codex or model update that thrusts it back into high popularity again. If its been a long enough period an army might even show increased sales over launch sales on some of those its been years and years.

My personal opinion is that GW has tried to reduce this aspect with their more modern marketing pushing a more united front for multiple armies at once. The idea likely being to avoid the big peak and trough approach to army sales and instead focus on maintaining broader spread of higher sales with the high sales spikes inbetween. Basically trying to reduce the "downtime" when an army isn't being marketed and might not be as up to date and thus isn't generating new sales .


Launch days are certainly big.
That said by and large you can get things on ebay. Scalpers are there, but at least in the UK market they are a smaller impact in the early days. They are more of a concern weeks/months later when the stock has dried up and when the regular sane prices have been bought. That said the patient person can pick up most things; wargamers are notorious for buying more than we can build and clean-outs of collections mean that stuff can keep coming around now and then. Of course long out of production items become rarer and more expensive if popular.

That said most of the modern GW plastic models that aren't speicalist one-off games or annual models; do get general release. There's nothing in the Luminoth box that is "limited edition" so it will all be on retail sale.

Karol wrote:

ccs 789376 10837565 wrote:

You've never heard of EBay etc I take it.
You can get everything on your list, individually, without extra models you don't want/need & often for prices not dissimilar to what GW'd charge you (if they ever packed these singly).

only on ebay you are paying scalping prices for stuff, and not even your local ones, you pay the price that is scalping for buyers from US or UK, or who ever is willing to pay the most.

Actually most of the time that’s false.

A month or so back I wanted a Primaris Ancient; I went on eBay, to buy-it-now, and iirc the cheapest was £3- and that wasn’t an anomaly. The prices have gone up somewhat now (probably due to Dark Imperium being packed up soon), but still many available that aren’t for silly money.

I almost exclusively buy stuff off ebay at extreme discount. Occasionally the price goes up due to circumstance. Then it drops again.

Togusa wrote:Generic Primaris Lieutenant

Yes you can. There's the sculpt from the Wake the Dead box who's separately sold.

Generic Banner Man

You also can't buy a regular Ancient or Apothecary on their own.

Obliterators
Suppressors
Gravis Captain
Greater Possessed
SP Sorcerer

These are all available in ~£50 boxes. Odds are, you probably have room in your collection for the other things in those boxes, and if not, there's always ebay.

To reiterate. I cannot buy JUST ONE of these models in its own box.

The same can be said of many models - where my generic Lieutenant kit? Apothecary? Ancient?

So far, nothing has shown this to be something that will change. As it stands they are only available in SC boxes (as some of you mentioned) or in their original packaging bundled with a ton of other miniatures I might not want.

Then sell off those other models? It really doesn't take much to sell off the excess at a good price.
Let's say that the SP Sorcerer, if released separate, would have been £20. That's a third of the price of his Star Collecting box. In order to "break even", you have to sell the Chaos Marines, Greater Possessed, Venomcrawler, and Obliterators at £40. You could sell each unit off at £10, and, if there's people like you who actually want those units, but don't want to pay for the whole box, they'd snap up those deals. You could *double* the price you're selling them for, and they'd still be cheaper than whatever GW would charge if released separate. The only thing there I can see having difficult selling off are the basic Chaos Marines, but you just lower their price to ridiculous savings, and have the other ones pick up the slack. £10 for the basic Marines, £15 for the Greater Possessed, and £20 each for the Obliterators and Venomcrawler - you've just made a profit.

TBH starter sets always had exclusive miniatures. I mean, look at the DA chosen or cultists.

GW taking advantage of gamers lack of impulse control ?

The cadsome bounders

Plays into my tinfoil theory of GW having a 3-5 year expection of customer lifespan as whilst fomo is a thing it doesnt generally work more than a couple of times as veterans twig to ebay, etc

 Togusa wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
No, I think they have extremely limited production hampered by a once a century pandemic and a shortened release window.

You just ignored all the examples the OP gave. Most of what they mentioned has nothing to do with their recent shutdown.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The aformentioned Captain (the Gravis one from DI) is also in the Know No Fear starter.

And you think that's sticking around once 9th hits?

It's amazing, it's like they know exactly what I am saying, but out of some need to argue they ignore it.

So for the first couple of posters, let me restate.

I cannot walk into a GW store or an FLGS and get:

Generic Primaris Lieutenant
Generic Banner Man
Obliterators
Suppressors
Gravis Captain
Greater Possessed
SP Sorcerer

To reiterate. I cannot buy JUST ONE of these models in its own box. So far, nothing has shown this to be something that will change. As it stands they are only available in SC boxes (as some of you mentioned) or in their original packaging bundled with a ton of other miniatures I might not want.

In the EG (Electronic Gaming) world, FOMO has been used to drive sales and force players into buying expensive "starter sets" or "Limited Edition" box kits that sell for far more than just getting the basic game. It does appear, that GW has been doing this with their recent release.

Also, get out of here with the pandemic , all of what I mentioned is over 14 months old and some it is nearly three years old at this point. COVID-19 has nothing to do with this.

'FOMO' doesn't describe "a model is only available in a boxed set with other models that's been available for 3 years" what on earth are you talking about

I think gw are changing the way they do boxed games and start collecting boxes, the shadow spear armies becoming start collecting boxes, the DI only models, and the AoS slaves to darkness start collecting box all have commonalities; they are push fit so lack posabilty (so that you move on to the regular kits after, and don't buy multiple SC boxes) the units don't include all options (same reasoning as before) and all include something not available outside of the box (to give those who already have the army a reason to buy it.)

I think this will be the model going forward, as it encourages new collectors of that army to move onto the more expensive kits for options/model variety, and existing collectors who wouldn't have needed a SC box that only had stuff they already had from the existing range to buy, for the unit(s) that aren't available on their own.

GW has tried a multitude of different marketing and advertising throughout the years. And have very publically struggled to develop a strategic alignment regarding product design, management, and rollout.

IMO - even factoring in the steep cost of designing new moulds for minis - I think GW would be wise to look at how a lot of video games are raking in cash through "cosmetic" items such as skins etc.

Rather than constantly needing to drive sales growth by releasing game-breaking units every few weeks, GW should produce limited run premium-priced (as if all GW isn't luxurious already...) sculpts of models for the different factions. This would tick the impulse purchase collector that their C-suite clearly believes to be the main cash cow of their industry, while at the same time making at least SOME attempts to preserve the integrity of a half-decent tabletop game system.

I realize that this is a bitter pill to swallow, but I think its the best feasible option to balance the interests of GW financial statements and us poor saps who dish out the cash.

we need only to look at the history of forge world to understand that GW do not have much economic incentive to produce a fair tabletop game.

 Togusa wrote:


Jesus dude, are you guys not paying attention?
I AM TALKING ABOUT GW LITERALLY NOT PUTTING SPECIFIC MODELS INTO BLISTERS IN ORDER TO FORCE THOSE WHO WANT THEM TO BUY EXPENSIVE BOX SETS. I AM AWARE THAT YOU CAN BUY THESE MODELS ON EBAY. I AM AWARE. THE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION HERE IS "ARE THEY DOING THIS ON PURPOSE TO DRIVE SALES?"

Yea we get it and its bs.

You're saying GW "forces" you to buy this BIG BOX of models or which half you don't want and this is a problem, because you don't want to buy the SMALL BOX of models, because it isn't that specific unit.

You're presupposing people are rushing out to buy extra models, because they can't handle buying less models.

He asked a fairly simple question, and it almost seems as though people went out of their way to misinterpret what he said...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Togusa wrote:


Jesus dude, are you guys not paying attention?
I AM TALKING ABOUT GW LITERALLY NOT PUTTING SPECIFIC MODELS INTO BLISTERS IN ORDER TO FORCE THOSE WHO WANT THEM TO BUY EXPENSIVE BOX SETS. I AM AWARE THAT YOU CAN BUY THESE MODELS ON EBAY. I AM AWARE. THE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION HERE IS "ARE THEY DOING THIS ON PURPOSE TO DRIVE SALES?"

Yea we get it and its bs.

You're saying GW "forces" you to buy this BIG BOX of models or which half you don't want and this is a problem, because you don't want to buy the SMALL BOX of models, because it isn't that specific unit.

You're presupposing people are rushing out to buy extra models, because they can't handle buying less models.

Clearly you haven't spent 5 minutes on r/warhammer40k...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
He asked a fairly simple question, and it almost seems as though people went out of their way to misinterpret what he said...

No, he shifted the goal posts.

Those models are available. He just doesn't like the manner in which they're available.

What "missing out" has occurred?

 DalekCheese wrote:

Karol wrote:

ccs 789376 10837565 wrote:

You've never heard of EBay etc I take it.
You can get everything on your list, individually, without extra models you don't want/need & often for prices not dissimilar to what GW'd charge you (if they ever packed these singly).

only on ebay you are paying scalping prices for stuff, and not even your local ones, you pay the price that is scalping for buyers from US or UK, or who ever is willing to pay the most.

Actually most of the time that’s false.

A month or so back I wanted a Primaris Ancient; I went on eBay, to buy-it-now, and iirc the cheapest was £3- and that wasn’t an anomaly. The prices have gone up somewhat now (probably due to Dark Imperium being packed up soon), but still many available that aren’t for silly money.

Ordering stuff from US, not only comes with the risk of getting a brick instead, but also comes with taxs and gigantic postal fees, that make the models cost as much as if you were buying them at the store. And I can promise you that the prices of models that people from the west may want, are always priced as if people from the west were suppose to buy them. And I am talking here about the scalping prices not the store prices, which are general close to each other .

we have our own version of ebay, and forums on facebook, but getting stuff like the marine part of dark empire, or riptides is always a problem, because there aren't that many people playing the game to have a huge secondary market. So people often opt to sell their stuff to players in germany, specialy if they live on the western border.