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International store: Pre-order still up. Why? Is the boycott actually working?

Why boycott?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Why boycott?

I think it was largely in response to GW's IP policy regarding fan animations shuttering a lot of people's work on Youtube.

Though I feel this is largely due to the pricing of the box, and that not everyone wants the terrain or the kill team stuff to gain access to the DKoK or Orks. Boycotts online are pretty hard to manage in a niche hobby like Warhammer since its not like you can enforce or effectively pressure people to not buy stuff unless you doxx people somehow. Not to mention that internet rage has a short shelf life before people get distracted by the next shiny.

That whole TTS nonsense. And no, it's not that. It's called actually making enough stock to go around for a change.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Why boycott?

It's the internet - there's always one mad group of anti-fans willing to boycott GW for something. Though I'd say the whole fan films thing is overblown and in poor taste when we consider that thus far the only videos fully "lost" are from a creator who was hounded off the whole idea of 40K animations by "fans"

Heck I heard that one of the big "Ripped Warhammer 3D asset" archives got pulled down today most likely by GW so there's a subset of fans going nuts at GW over that.


In the end they don't work. No call for a "boycott" has ever worked against GW.

 CMLR wrote:
International store: Pre-order still up. Why? Is the boycott actually working?

Very little incentive for scalpers now, plus the lukewarm reception from a large chunk of people who aren't happy it's not "8th/9th edition with one squad of models" anymore.

Boycott was doomed the second Black Templars were revealed.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
That whole TTS nonsense. And no, it's not that. It's called actually making enough stock to go around for a change.

They said it would only last two days. Not gonna complain, but that's extremely un-GW.

I know a boycott is pointless, but this was shocking.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 CMLR wrote:
International store: Pre-order still up. Why? Is the boycott actually working?

Very little incentive for scalpers now, plus the lukewarm reception from a large chunk of people who aren't happy it's not "8th/9th edition with one squad of models" anymore.

Boycott was doomed the same Black Templars were revealed.

I think there's a lot of reasons KT might have underperformed.

I reckon a lot of people don't value terrain highly, and especially Ork-specific terrain (other than HBMC of course). If you're not a GW terrain fanatic, then it feels like poor value.

Then you had people going cold on the rules. Beyond the absurdity of the circle, triangle, pentagon stuff, there seemed to be a lot of rules people didn't like.

Then you have the cost of the books / accessories.

Then you had the reviews of the Compendium, which felt very underwhelming and overpriced, but needed to play any team beyond the DKOK and Kommandos.

I think maybe GW shot themselves in the foot a bit with making it as expensive as possible to get into the game, with the only option for the Octarius book being to buy the expensive boxed set, and the only option for getting rules for other teams is the expensive compendium, at some point people just lose interest.



Maybe the boycott did something also, but honestly these last few posts on this thread are the first thing I've heard of any boycott, lol, so I doubt it went too far.

Wait, what? Some people took advatange of GW's IP and made money with it, GW stepped up with a C&D, and now suddenly GW is the bad guy?

Hilarious

Interent rando's thirst for badly made bolter pron never ceases to amaze..

They completely dropped the ball on communication.

modern western communities are strange

GW can do so much wrong, nothing happens, but doing something that is legit but some groups think they are right, and goes viral
(which happens with a lot of things these days, everything wrong is ok, but do something the vocal minority feeling betrayed and the internet goes bonkers and the real problems get lost)

but the "boycott" lasted just for a week at best
most channels are back to GW content (most now make a video of how 3D printing is GWs biggest enemy) and everything is alright with the preview of Black Templar and the Orc Video

for KT not sellinbg out
well, the rules are the usual GW quality, they took no advantage of the "new" ideas but just make it look different
gameplay is based around the content of the box, and more are announced, so rather waiting until the box with your faction comes out than going with an Index


the models in the box are rather bought as stand alone product because there are not many who want everything

and without a shiny new Orc Codex available to everyone or a new Militarum Codex around, there is no big need for the new models anyway

PS: not forgetting that the market of Skirmish games sees much harder competition than the Mass Battle games like 40k
you have to deliver a proper product for such a high price and KT does not look very good compared to the other Skirmish games available

"Modern western" is an interesting way of spelling "human"

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
"Modern western" is an interesting way of spelling "human"

because human would mean you get this one everywhere, yet it is not
even in central/eastern Europe things are already different, and you won't get this internet hyperbole in Asia this way

this is more or less a western/US phenomena

They said they'd made as much as dominion and were having 2 week pre order. It's not a massive shock to see it up for order on week 2, as dominion was is it?

Vorian wrote:
They said they'd made as much as dominion and were having 2 week pre order. It's not a massive shock to see it up for order on week 2, as dominion was is it?

You can of course still order Dominion

But I'm not sure Octarius will be up after this week :(

 PetitionersCity wrote:

Vorian wrote:
They said they'd made as much as dominion and were having 2 week pre order. It's not a massive shock to see it up for order on week 2, as dominion was is it?

You can of course still order Dominion

But I'm not sure Octarius will be up after this week :(

They didn't say they made the same number as dominion, they made some vague comment about making a lot of them so they wouldn't sell out instantly, similar to how they made a lot of dominion such that it also wouldn't sell out instantly.

Given the MTO promise, I'm guessing the initial positive reception on forums and comments in the twitch stream made them think they underestimated popularity, so put in the MTO promise to make sure it didn't sell out instantly, but then maybe people got cold on it with further announcements, reviews, etc.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:

 CMLR wrote:
International store: Pre-order still up. Why? Is the boycott actually working?

Very little incentive for scalpers now, plus the lukewarm reception from a large chunk of people who aren't happy it's not "8th/9th edition with one squad of models" anymore.

Boycott was doomed the same Black Templars were revealed.

I think there's a lot of reasons KT might have underperformed.

I reckon a lot of people don't value terrain highly, and especially Ork-specific terrain (other than HBMC of course). If you're not a GW terrain fanatic, then it feels like poor value.

Then you had people going cold on the rules. Beyond the absurdity of the circle, triangle, pentagon stuff, there seemed to be a lot of rules people didn't like.

Then you have the cost of the books / accessories.

Then you had the reviews of the Compendium, which felt very underwhelming and overpriced, but needed to play any team beyond the DKOK and Kommandos.

I think maybe GW shot themselves in the foot a bit with making it as expensive as possible to get into the game, with the only option for the Octarius book being to buy the expensive boxed set, and the only option for getting rules for other teams is the expensive compendium, at some point people just lose interest.



Maybe the boycott did something also, but honestly these last few posts on this thread are the first thing I've heard of any boycott, lol, so I doubt it went too far.

The week before KT:O went on sale, the Thousand Sons vs. Grey Knights box sold out in < 10 minutes in every territory it was in. Despite featuring two less popular armies, it held substantial value – nearly $350 in MSRP for $170. It was essentially a buy one get one free promotion. If you liked one side of the box, it was equivalent to getting it at the 15% MSRP plus the other side for free!

The KT:O Box has ~$220 worth of plastic, half of which is terrain at $200 MSRP. This isn't some great mystery. Sure, you can inflate the value of the box by pointing to the soon to be obsolete rule book or overpriced measuring gauges, but it's just a mediocre value relative to almost every other limited box they've released post 7th edition.

I pre-ordered one and hope the game gets uptake, but don't see the response as anything other than a rational economic response to an underwhelming value proposition.

well said

Sure, if you only focus on the model content. Kill Team is a game unto itself.

Me? I’m feeling the Orky terrain, as it should be easily adaptable to Necromunda.

 flaherty wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:

 CMLR wrote:
International store: Pre-order still up. Why? Is the boycott actually working?

Very little incentive for scalpers now, plus the lukewarm reception from a large chunk of people who aren't happy it's not "8th/9th edition with one squad of models" anymore.

Boycott was doomed the same Black Templars were revealed.

I think there's a lot of reasons KT might have underperformed.

I reckon a lot of people don't value terrain highly, and especially Ork-specific terrain (other than HBMC of course). If you're not a GW terrain fanatic, then it feels like poor value.

Then you had people going cold on the rules. Beyond the absurdity of the circle, triangle, pentagon stuff, there seemed to be a lot of rules people didn't like.

Then you have the cost of the books / accessories.

Then you had the reviews of the Compendium, which felt very underwhelming and overpriced, but needed to play any team beyond the DKOK and Kommandos.

I think maybe GW shot themselves in the foot a bit with making it as expensive as possible to get into the game, with the only option for the Octarius book being to buy the expensive boxed set, and the only option for getting rules for other teams is the expensive compendium, at some point people just lose interest.



Maybe the boycott did something also, but honestly these last few posts on this thread are the first thing I've heard of any boycott, lol, so I doubt it went too far.

The week before KT:O went on sale, the Thousand Sons vs. Grey Knights box sold out in < 10 minutes in every territory it was in. Despite featuring two less popular armies, it held substantial value – nearly $350 in MSRP for $170. It was essentially a buy one get one free promotion. If you liked one side of the box, it was equivalent to getting it at the 15% MSRP plus the other side for free!

The KT:O Box has ~$220 worth of plastic, half of which is terrain at $200 MSRP. This isn't some great mystery. Sure, you can inflate the value of the box by pointing to the soon to be obsolete rule book or overpriced measuring gauges, but it's just a mediocre value relative to almost every other limited box they've released post 7th edition.

I pre-ordered one and hope the game gets uptake, but don't see the response as anything other than a rational economic response to an underwhelming value proposition.

I'm sure they made far less of the Thousand Sons vs. Grey Knights box than they made boxes of Kill Team.

But yeah, I agree the high price tag, small number of troops and large amount of terrain probably didn't help them move product. I know some people like GW terrain (HBMC...) but it's just not something most people place a high value on.

I bought two.

But I doubt that the baked-in 'discount' was so small ($220 box that you pay $200 for). The total contents would be far more than that.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I bought two.

Yeah, I bought one as well, but a version of me that wasn't single with a full time job probably wouldn't even consider a box this expensive where the main item of value was simply terrain.

But I doubt that the baked-in 'discount' was so small ($220 box that you pay $200 for). The total contents would be far more than that.

If we ignore the rules and rules related accessories I'd be curious to see how much you'd pay for it separately, is the terrain maybe roughly equivalent to the Charadon boxed set? So about $150USD of terrain? Then add on maybe $45 each for the DKOK and Kommandos? So $240 all up?

But in the end, most people aren't going to be so taken by the terrain as to see it as good value.

The most alienating aspect of the box is the fact that they didn’t include the compendium in the rulebook and so that tacked on yet another fee. Most people who play KT do so because they have a smattering of different factions, and so GW doing everything they possibly can to eek every extra cent out of consumers is just a tactic that people are now tired of.

And that's regular US dollars... how much do you pay for this down under?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If we ignore the rules and rules related accessories...

... then we wouldn't be making a valid comparison. Doubly so given we know exactly how much GW are charging for dice, for the stupid measurement things and the barricades/counters, the cards, and the rulebook.

The rulebook, card set, "essentials" set, and half a dice set ('cause the box has 10 D6's, not 20 like a dice set) comes to US$120.50.

And you think the Kommandos will be US$45 per box? I can see them easily being the same price as Intercessors at US$60. The Kriegers have an extra sprue, much like the Cadians, so we'll call them US$45. Then Charadon US$150 on top of that. And we don't even know how much the Octarius book would cost, so we'll call that a gimme and say it's $0.

We're looking at US$350-US$375 worth of stuff for US$199. Doesn't matter if some people don't "value" the terrain, as the terrain has value. A monetary one. And not a small one at that.

This box is far, far, far from a US$220 box with a twenty buck "discount".

we are looking at 2 boxes of models that go for 40-50, terrain worth 100 and rules

so basically you get the rules and gaming aids for free, but without the compendium

so everyone who does not want Orks or Krieg and does not start it as "new" game, you are better of with the rulebook in addition to the compendium you need anyway than with the box

 Albertorius wrote:
And that's regular US dollars... how much do you pay for this down under?

Not much more than you.

Remember US money is gak at the moment thanks to things we can't talk about at Dakka.

So it's US$199 over there, and US$207 here.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If we ignore the rules and rules related accessories...

... then we wouldn't be making a valid comparison. Doubly so given we know exactly how much GW are charging for dice, for the stupid measurement things and the barricades/counters, and the rulebook.

I purposely left it out because I don't think your average gamer is going to consider that worth any monetary value in this context (weighing up the value of a box).

Starter boxes, IMO, need to be a good value on multiple fronts if they're going to gain any real traction. If you only want one faction and the rules, they need to be good value. If you only want the models and not the rules, they need to be good value. If you only want the rules and the models are just a bonus, they need to be good value.

If for the Kill Team box to be good value you need to add up every single piece in the box, the target audience is going to be limited to people who genuinely want every single thing in the box, which I think would be very few (not none, just not many).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
And that's regular US dollars... how much do you pay for this down under?

Not much more than you.

Remember US money is gak at the moment thanks to things we can't talk about at Dakka.

So it's US$199 over there, and US$207 here.

Oh, no, I would have paid euros. I was 155 euros over here IIRC.

 Albertorius wrote:
And that's regular US dollars... how much do you pay for this down under?

It's probably much the same in Oz, the squads might be $70-80AUD, Charadon is $250AUD and the KT boxed set is $290RRP.