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 Albertorius wrote:

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:
Home games are great for an existing group. They're terrible for getting new players into the game because you won't even know the home game exists until you're already part of the community.

This is the issue people keep failing to understand.

We're not. I think for many people is mostly a cultural difference. Local stores have NEVER been the focal social points for hobby communities that seem to be in the USA. So here, for many people, what you are trying to assert does not apply. People play at home, or at clubs, and could give a rat's ass that some store has a table. And even so, "the community" thrives.

Be interesting to know if Oz and NZ have the European culture, or if the more spread out cities mean the US shop centric approach is default?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Which given I got into wargaming in a friends shed, I have always been surprised by given the larger houses and more space many have in the US (though I assume not so much in cities).

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
Okay, I'll play. If GW sold products direct to me at wholesale prices would I buy from discount retailers? No. I'd just buy direct.

So we are in agreement that the online discount seller is offering nothing of value whatsoever beyond allowing you to use their store account to order from GW? They provide no service to you other than forwarding your order to GW and having it sent to your house?

Correct.

Just like a supermarket provides no value other than sourcing all the products and letting me purchase them. Just like any shop. That's all they do. They buy from distributors and sell them to me, because I'm not allowed to buy direct from distributors, because the world doesn't work that way.

If your argument is that the entire retail sector is parasitical then that's a big stretch but I sort of respect the position comrade.

Have you ever thought about the fact GW clearly sees value in online retailers, given they keep fully supporting them, and they probably know more about running Games Workshop than you do.

 privateer4hire wrote:
Provide a central location for play, finding products, linking with other players (about quarter of our players refuse to use social media, for example).

Are people less social with strangers/lack venues for clubs in the US? Just wondering why we seem to have a bunch of clubs in most areas in the UK but that isn't the case over the pond?

deano2099 wrote:
If your argument is that the entire retail sector is parasitical then that's a big stretch but I sort of respect the position comrade.

A lot of it is. A store that adds value by letting you buy in person and get a thing immediately, supports a community, etc, is not a parasite. A dropshipper is nothing more than a parasite, and 40k discount sellers are far closer to dropshippers than to real stores.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Are people less social with strangers/lack venues for clubs in the US? Just wondering why we seem to have a bunch of clubs in most areas in the UK but that isn't the case over the pond?

I suspect it's simply that US retail space is cheaper per square foot and more stores have gaming space. Why deal with the hassle of arranging space for a club when the local store has free gaming space with zero effort?

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
But you are the one claiming cheaper price isn't relevant! After all if you can afford to pay for MSRP you can afford scalper price.

I never said that price isn't relevant. I said that affordability is not determined by price differences on this scale. I can absolutely afford to pay $500 for a basic marine squad instead of $50 but I sure as hell don't want to and would probably refuse to buy at that point.

This was great, thanks. The lack of self awareness in this message was the cherry on the cake of these hilarious exchanges.

If a scalper had a 50% off coupon for any tickets he included in his cart, then bought all the tickets, and sold them for 80% the original value, would he be a parasite? It seems he's providing the service of tickets being cheaper, and he's making money off of it.

TauEmissary wrote:
Have you ever thought about the fact GW clearly sees value in online retailers, given they keep fully supporting them, and they probably know more about running Games Workshop than you do.

OTOH GW has taken significant actions to mitigate online discount sellers: restricting the maximum discount they can sell at and banning them from selling outside their region and undercutting the local stores. So I'd say GW shares my concerns about them and knows they need to protect the real stores.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
If a scalper had a 50% off coupon for any tickets he included in his cart, then bought all the tickets, and sold them for 80% the original value, would he be a parasite? It seems he's providing the service of tickets being cheaper, and he's making money off of it.

A service which is far more than offset by the scalper putting all non-scalpers out of business, leading to a drop in customers and artists no longer bothering with live music anymore. The parasite makes short-term money at the expense of the thing they're exploiting.

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

 kodos wrote:
the problem is not that online-only stores can operate cheaper but that GW makes operating B&M stores more difficult

But this price increase applies to both sellers and the closer everyone gets to MSRP the better. If the online seller is offering a 20% discount and the real store can only afford a 15% discount a 5% increase moves the new discounts to 15% and 10%. And the closer you get to "it's not worth buying online, I'll just buy it at full price locally" the more online discounters and their lack of value are pushed out of the market.

yeah, so GW is trying to push B&M stores out of the wargaming market in hope to increase their own profit
simply because if everyone is close to MSRP, everyone will by directly from GW and the retailer stores are done

because there is no reason to go to a shop who needs to order on demand or cannot order certain items at all, if GW has them in stock and both are the same price

and with a recession incoming, B&M stores will need every cent to survive but with this measures GW makes sure their stores are the ones that are left in the end

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

TauEmissary wrote:
Have you ever thought about the fact GW clearly sees value in online retailers, given they keep fully supporting them, and they probably know more about running Games Workshop than you do.

OTOH GW has taken significant actions to mitigate online discount sellers: restricting the maximum discount they can sell at and banning them from selling outside their region and undercutting the local stores. So I'd say GW shares my concerns about them and knows they need to protect the real stores.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
If a scalper had a 50% off coupon for any tickets he included in his cart, then bought all the tickets, and sold them for 80% the original value, would he be a parasite? It seems he's providing the service of tickets being cheaper, and he's making money off of it.

A service which is far more than offset by the scalper putting all non-scalpers out of business, leading to a drop in customers and artists no longer bothering with live music anymore. The parasite makes short-term money at the expense of the thing they're exploiting.

Has that exact scenario you've described countless times now, without ever bringing up a real life example of said process, ever actually happened, or is it just your imaginaion?

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
If your argument is that the entire retail sector is parasitical then that's a big stretch but I sort of respect the position comrade.

A lot of it is. A store that adds value by letting you buy in person and get a thing immediately, supports a community, etc, is not a parasite. A dropshipper is nothing more than a parasite, and 40k discount sellers are far closer to dropshippers than to real stores.

But again, that depends on what you value? I honestly see greater value in having something delivered to my door than I do in buying in person. Buying in person is an inconvenience for me unless it's clothes that I'd want to try on, or art or other subjective stuff.

For any mass-produced boxed product, delivery is far more useful. And 99% of things I need, I don't need "right away" and can wait a couple of days.

This is the crux of it really. For 40K a physical store does provide benefits for some people. And I'd agree if you want those benefits (community, play space) it's worth paying 20% extra for. What I'd put to you is that, as someone that doesn't want those benefits, I'd rather take that 20% back in cash. I'm not interested in paying for your play space and community. Sorry.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:
Home games are great for an existing group. They're terrible for getting new players into the game because you won't even know the home game exists until you're already part of the community.

This is the issue people keep failing to understand.

We're not. I think for many people is mostly a cultural difference. Local stores have NEVER been the focal social points for hobby communities that seem to be in the USA. So here, for many people, what you are trying to assert does not apply. People play at home, or at clubs, and could give a rat's ass that some store has a table. And even so, "the community" thrives.

Be interesting to know if Oz and NZ have the European culture, or if the more spread out cities mean the US shop centric approach is default?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Which given I got into wargaming in a friends shed, I have always been surprised by given the larger houses and more space many have in the US (though I assume not so much in cities).

NZer here. We have gaming stores in our larger cities, but not in the small towns. In the city I live in the LGS has some space for demo games. But most games are either at a club that rents a hall or at peoples homes. NZ is about the size of Colorado (NZ 268,021km² vs Colorado 269,837km²) but NZ is stretched out to 1600km (1000 miles) long.

Myself I got introduced to Warhammer through friends. Bought stuff through local store back then, internet now. We played at each others house. Played on dining tables and in garages. My local wargaming club last time I checked (I did not join) mainly plays 40k and is relatively small. I suspect that most of the wargamers are still garagehammers.

More active gamers in NZ might give a different answer, but this is my experience.

I wish I could find one of those mythical online discounters. Everything is so expensive here. And no our "higher" wages does not make up for it.

What if someone doesn't have to choose? What about physical stores like larger Hobbytown USA's that have both gaming space AND a 20% discount on GW product(and more often than not discounts ONLY on GW product)? Are they parasitical because they offer a discount or are they not because they offer the "value" of gaming space?

Hypothetically, of course, because I don't play in stores.

After Brexit any items I have purchased from GW were ordered through independent stores online, which in most cases have 10 to 20% discounts on some items, but also have physical stores.
Obviously I don't go to the stores in person because they are in different countries, but I guess that must be the privilege of living in a country where there are almost no miniature stores and the few that exist are mostly located on the capital of the country and sell GW stuff even more expensive than GW (besides having almost nothing in stock at a given time).

I have also seen some online stores with physical stores sell things marked as discounted which were more expensive than the original despite stating that they were discounted. I know for sure which of the 2 situations is preying more on consumers and it isn't the offer of a regular discount.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:
This illustrates your fundamental misunderstanding of how hypothetical scenarios work. "What if this happened" is not the same as "this is something you should do".

Who gives a damn about hypothetical scenarios? No one has to answer any thing you posit when it comes from a grounding of fantasy and weird outrage at normal business-related practices.

I mean... there's a reason why "let's assume a spherical cow" is the start of a joke.

deano2099 wrote:
And if you speak to scalpers, they'll use the same argument you are. They're providing a "service" - they're making sure that people who can't be online to get a ticket when they go on sale, or who try and miss out, can still get a ticket.
They provide a service for those for whom money is no object to skip the queue.
It's a nonsense, of course, and they are indeed parasites.
.

False analogy.
Scalpers and touts are different, they buy up a product or service and then sell it at inflated prices once availability has drained.
That is just pure greed and is parasitical. Artificial shortages are not fair use of the free market.

Discounters are a polar opposite to that, they buy stock to sell low during normal market competition, rather than buy stock to force the market to close then sell high independently.
See the difference in both direction and ethos.

Effective scalpers/touts also aim these days to buy up a majority of the stock. It's so bad that some sports events you almost can't get a release ticket and they are sold within milliseconds of going live. So for most people you have to get them from the scalpers.
Which caused a lot of uproar because the ticket selling firm also runs the secondhand ticket selling service.

It's why GW adopted the print on demand for some of their limited box deals. Because scalpers are darn hard to fight against and will use a myriad of tricks to get stock.

Scalpers and Online Sellers are a false equivalency, because Scalpers take away products away from the paying consumers, by buying them from the company itself like a regular consumer would (except through the use of bots), and then re-selling them at a higher price against the company's wishes, while Online Sellers literally just resell the stock that Games Workshop directly assigned to them through a trade agreement both parties agreed on with the explict goal of the Online Seller selling the product.

deano2099 wrote:


But again, that depends on what you value? I honestly see greater value in having something delivered to my door than I do in buying in person. Buying in person is an inconvenience for me unless it's clothes that I'd want to try on, or art or other subjective stuff.

For any mass-produced boxed product, delivery is far more useful. And 99% of things I need, I don't need "right away" and can wait a couple of days.

This is the crux of it really. For 40K a physical store does provide benefits for some people. And I'd agree if you want those benefits (community, play space) it's worth paying 20% extra for. What I'd put to you is that, as someone that doesn't want those benefits, I'd rather take that 20% back in cash. I'm not interested in paying for your play space and community. Sorry.

Exactly. Oh, and don't forget the cost of gas to drive to the store (or bus or train if you use mass transit), in the US at least, anywhere from a 6-8% sales tax, and time spent (for me, 90 minutes round trip), oh, and paying $5-10 every time I want to play in the store? Yeah. No. That all adds up to way more than the 15-20% I save shopping online. So I'm actually paying more at the store, and not needing or using any of the supposed "benefits".

I mean, I can't find any store that keeps a decent stock of any paints, so that removes the "I need it now" excuse for even going to the store.

I was introduced to the game by a friend, who was introduced by a friend. I've met other gamers through friends, and don't play in stores. We all play at someone's home. So again, being able to order what I want or need, have it delivered, and pay a little less overall? Yeah, I'm all for it as a consumer.

 kodos wrote:

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

 kodos wrote:
the problem is not that online-only stores can operate cheaper but that GW makes operating B&M stores more difficult

But this price increase applies to both sellers and the closer everyone gets to MSRP the better. If the online seller is offering a 20% discount and the real store can only afford a 15% discount a 5% increase moves the new discounts to 15% and 10%. And the closer you get to "it's not worth buying online, I'll just buy it at full price locally" the more online discounters and their lack of value are pushed out of the market.

yeah, so GW is trying to push B&M stores out of the wargaming market in hope to increase their own profit
simply because if everyone is close to MSRP, everyone will by directly from GW and the retailer stores are done

because there is no reason to go to a shop who needs to order on demand or cannot order certain items at all, if GW has them in stock and both are the same price

and with a recession incoming, B&M stores will need every cent to survive but with this measures GW makes sure their stores are the ones that are left in the end

Let us assume here that indie storefronts are essential to product survival. Let us assume that stores provide a 'service' whether or not the are morally obliged to provide that service if selling product.

1. GW price hikes the FLGS out of its profit margin.
2. FLGS decides to stock Battletech instead as its focal product.
3. 6x4 is replaced with hexmaps and demo forces of mech lances.
4. 40Kers complain, shop points out they have no margin from Citadel but can get one from Catalyst.
5. Players grumble but understand, some leave, some stay and try new product.
6. Shop survives.

If the storefronts are that pivotal starving them out will cause large shifts in product retention. GW is fully aware they have a reputation, they are aware they can, lose market share from pricing policy and yet persist with it anyway. While it is rational to accuse GW of short term thinking and that milder prices would lead to long term profitability a lot of companies senior management do think no further than the next quarter. GW is not really eligible to be singled out for that as any extreme case.

GW doesn't believe in storefront presence for market retention and has a retail arm for that purpose. But evidently does not believe that third party storefronts are a significant factor or believe it will come to the scenario described above.

Here is what will actually happen.

1. GW rises the retailers price by 5.8%.
2. Other providers also likely raise prices and due to being smaller are more market volatile.
3. Each FLGS will be effected differently dependant on location and other games available.
4. Those harder hit by the price hike will diversify more and potentially shift a proportion of their stockline into other products.
5. Some may reduce stock to token amounts at unfavourable prices, they still have 40K but its more like shelf decor, customers are still drawn in but channelled into areas where a profit can be made, that might be another game system, it might be coffee.
6. Most will accept lower sales and order GW stock anyway for lines that sell.

I sawt this news when her video dropped.
This does hurt local game shops. Most of the big ones I know about make and or have made a lot of money selling GW. (Ya, they sell everything else too. )
I don't frequent shops much at all any more so I don't know if things have changed as far s sales now but I recall a time when GW dictated what shops had to stock and I recall my favorite shop abandoning GW all together. I'd like to see more of that. Opening the doors of other miniatures games at possible better prices would be a win, imop. I find the current GW crowd fairly toxic at my local and that's one reason I stopped going. (9th edition being another.) I guess the question is can small shops do enough business to get past this extra cost they must now deal with. Or will they pass it onto the customers in some form, if not price raises. In a small way I do hope this comes back to bite GW in the rear but if that does happen I hope it motivates them to produce products that people like myself would actually want, ie revised rules for older editions bringing the new models in, as in backwards compatible while not worrying about oop models. All it would take is a few knowledgeable rules writers and some print runs. Or not, what ever. GW's gunna GW.

TauEmissary wrote:
Scalpers and Online Sellers are a false equivalency, because Scalpers take away products away from the paying consumers, by buying them from the company itself like a regular consumer would (except through the use of bots), and then re-selling them at a higher price against the company's wishes, while Online Sellers literally just resell the stock that Games Workshop directly assigned to them through a trade agreement both parties agreed on with the explict goal of the Online Seller selling the product.

Assuming Scalpers sell their products (which, given a reasonable cost burden seems likely), the products end up with paying consumers in the end.

Scalpers ultimately just exploit the issue of products having one price - when people value them differently. Which we've seen in this thread.
What price will you pay for the new GW hotness? 75% RRP? 80% RRP? 100% RRP? 150% RRP? 200% RRP if it comes in its own special cardboard box?

If they can buy a load of product to get to the people willing to pay over the odds then they make a bunch of money. If they can't, they don't. Whether this is fairer than a "refresh lottery", where you either get the good/ticket etc or not can be debated. But I don't really have an issue with people trading goods, so I'm not really clear why I would think these special goods should be separate.

The problem I guess - which is all discussions about GW's pricing - is that there's a lot of rich people out there. And GW know it. So they charge a lot. If you can't afford that last box of Space Marines then that's sad - but there's no point GW having to sell their product 10% cheaper to everyone in that country (or whatever) to keep you on the books. As long as the grey plastic is moving out as fast as they can make it, they should be a successful business.

Scalpers aren't exploiting the issue of products having only one RRP, they exploit any product of limited quantity; or any manufactured product that they can buy faster than suppliers can restock. Hence during the lockdowns graphics cards were scalped because the production and distribution was slowed and the bitcoin market was buying them up. So scalpers were able to buy-out the stock as it came out, even though the cards were not limited production items.


Scalpers are purely in it for profit and nothing else. The money they make is purely for their own gain.
Sure GW make profit; as do 3rd party stores and online stores. However most of those avenues are feeding money back into the hobby in some form. Supporting local interests, supporting clubs, making new models etc.....

The scalper money is purely for their pocket.





Furthermore all they are doing is inflating cost. They aren't providing stock at discount; or providing it locally or providing it to new markets or outreach. All they are doing is getting between the customer and the store/manufacturer and taking the product and then demanding that you pay them more money to release the product to you, the customer.

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

But this price increase applies to both sellers and the closer everyone gets to MSRP the better. If the online seller is offering a 20% discount and the real store can only afford a 15% discount a 5% increase moves the new discounts to 15% and 10%. And the closer you get to "it's not worth buying online, I'll just buy it at full price locally" the more online discounters and their lack of value are pushed out of the market.

Or just not at all?
The closer the cost get to msrp, the less I'm inclined to purchase(esp since MSRP just keeps going up)So by your logic I should just not buy at all? I'm ok with that, my wife would be overjoyed, something tells me GW wouldn't be. Cuz if that's repeated enuff, GWcan say "buh bye" to their market share(with is all they really care about).

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:


But this price increase applies to both sellers and the closer everyone gets to MSRP the better. If the online seller is offering a 20% discount and the real store can only afford a 15% discount a 5% increase moves the new discounts to 15% and 10%. And the closer you get to "it's not worth buying online, I'll just buy it at full price locally" the more online discounters and their lack of value are pushed out of the market.

This is completely incorrect thinking.

Online Retailers rely on massive number of sales and the FLGS relies on ANY sales. It's the same way Wal-Mart destroyed other competitors like K-Mart, Alco, and ShopKo to name a few. Wal-Mart doesn't care that their margin is pennies per sale when they outsell their competition 100 to 1.

The FLGS doesn't have the space to stock, or hold on to that stock for longer periods of time, where an Online Store with Free Shipping has the space, and time, to move stock. They often also have more employees and are better at projecting how many units to order because they know they will sell. They also get priority, as we've seen, with larger orders from Distributors.

It won't matter if GW drives the margin to ZERO, most people will go online to get what they want, faster, over driving to a FLGS, order, wait until the weekly/monthly order gets put in, driving back, and picking it up.

The amount of "wrong think" you have is astounding, but applaud you for dying on this pointless hill.

GW gets what GW wants, just like every other profit driven company (I.E. all of them) so you either take what they give, or don't, and move on.

And don't tell me people will move on.

We're in a worldwide recession and Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales were at all time highs.

They have the crack, and you are addicted.

TauEmissary wrote:
Scalpers and Online Sellers are a false equivalency, because Scalpers take away products away from the paying consumers, by buying them from the company itself like a regular consumer would (except through the use of bots), and then re-selling them at a higher price against the company's wishes, while Online Sellers literally just resell the stock that Games Workshop directly assigned to them through a trade agreement both parties agreed on with the explict goal of the Online Seller selling the product.

More to the point, scalpers generally aren't cheaper than just going through normal channels. Where scalpers make their money is a situation where a concert or sporting event has sold out, so tickets are far above "gate price."

That's not the situation at all here. If you want to pay MSRP, GW is ready and waiting for you.

For the analogy to work, the online guys would have to walk into every GW store/slam the GW online ordering system and buy out the entire inventory and then sell it for a hefty markup.

Which obviously isn't happening.

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:
But this price increase applies to both sellers and the closer everyone gets to MSRP the better. If the online seller is offering a 20% discount and the real store can only afford a 15% discount a 5% increase moves the new discounts to 15% and 10%. And the closer you get to "it's not worth buying online, I'll just buy it at full price locally" the more online discounters and their lack of value are pushed out of the market.

Sooo, your argument is gamers don't know mathematics?

If someone buys online to get a 20% discount vs a 15% discount in store, they're still going to buy online to get a 5% discount vs a 0% discount in store.... or maybe they just stop buying altogether, because the price has gotten too high.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Sooo, your argument is gamers don't know mathematics?

If someone buys online to get a 20% discount vs a 15% discount in store, they're still going to buy online to get a 5% discount vs a 0% discount in store.... or maybe they just stop buying altogether, because the price has gotten too high.

Contrary to the beliefs of economists and libertarians people aren't perfectly rational data points in a mathematical model. Psychology matters, and 20% is a much bigger number than 5%. "Save 20%" gets way more people to change their behavior than "save 5%". At a mere 5% discount many, if not most, people won't bother chasing it and will just buy locally at MSRP.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

TauEmissary wrote:
Scalpers and Online Sellers are a false equivalency, because Scalpers take away products away from the paying consumers, by buying them from the company itself like a regular consumer would (except through the use of bots), and then re-selling them at a higher price against the company's wishes, while Online Sellers literally just resell the stock that Games Workshop directly assigned to them through a trade agreement both parties agreed on with the explict goal of the Online Seller selling the product.

It's not a false equivalency because I never said they were equal. The point is to establish the existence of a parasite that is still almost universally acknowledged to be a parasite even though they are acting as a rational profit seeker and within the scope of the law. Once we agree that such a thing is possible we can move on to establishing that online discount sellers have much more in common with scalpers and drop shippers than with real stores.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:
But this price increase applies to both sellers and the closer everyone gets to MSRP the better. If the online seller is offering a 20% discount and the real store can only afford a 15% discount a 5% increase moves the new discounts to 15% and 10%. And the closer you get to "it's not worth buying online, I'll just buy it at full price locally" the more online discounters and their lack of value are pushed out of the market.

Sooo, your argument is gamers don't know mathematics?

If someone buys online to get a 20% discount vs a 15% discount in store, they're still going to buy online to get a 5% discount vs a 0% discount in store.... or maybe they just stop buying altogether, because the price has gotten too high.

There's also people who will simply buy online to guarantee they get a specific product instead of waste time driving to a physical store and risk said product not being in stock. I see it all the time in the Transformers collecting community. Collectors will pay slightly more in shipping to make sure they get what they want and not waste time or gas going to a local store just for possible immediate gratification and possible disappointment.

TauEmissary wrote:
Has that exact scenario you've described countless times now, without ever bringing up a real life example of said process, ever actually happened, or is it just your imaginaion?

Obviously the exact scenario hasn't happened because the exact conditions haven't happened. There's only one GW and no other miniatures company has been in their position before, so we have to predict based on the best assumptions we can make. But what exactly about this scenario do you dispute? Do you dispute that a failure spiral is possible? Do you dispute that GW will likely raise prices to improve their financial reports if sales volume drops? Do you have any specific fact to dispute or just "YOU CANT PROVE THAT"?