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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thanks for telling me my opinion.

Guess it’s time to go nuke my Loot Group.

I mean, 6k+ members clearly don’t really care about avoiding scalpers. You said so.

I think your responding to me.

You and your group of 6000 plus should be able to order these special edition books without any hassle, scalpers or no scalpers. Unfortunately GW printed what? 2500 copies. And then wants you to digitally que for however long at 10am only to find out all the books already sold out at 09:59.

I always love it when an institution implements a process to stop the "bad guys" and instead makes the process bad for everyone else except for those they intended to stop in the first place.

Seems to happen far, far too often.

Well apparently this didn't work.

At this point it's going to have to be 10 copies per GW store and then brutal combat to see who gets them. Only way to stop the machines is remove the machines.

tneva82 wrote:

And then all the people who want limited editon complains gw doesn't say what they want to buy.

For them the value is in owning what only few have.

Thus gw couldn't sell higher price book for them as unlimited wouldn't be interest.

'Premium' edition books sold at the limited edition pricetag with the sexy limited edition covers but as a MTO instead of limited edition would satisfy the vast majority of customers who collect limited editions for their limited nature (because they would still have a book that by its nature and pricetag is less common than the standard edition and looks different), while potentially opening the door for more sales overall and simultaneously removing any potential for scalping and the need to make customers looking for completely unrelated products queue for a webstore.

The other option is GW could form a book-collectors club which gains exclusive purchasing access to a single copy of each limited edition book like this.

Then they can have a rafter of things like fees/activity monitoring and such to try and whittle out the scalpers whilst also running address checks and so forth; plus they'd have X number of members and be able to then have exact order quantities which could satisfy that market.


Of course that does mean they'd lock out regular people jumping on in on a whim and it kind of closes off these books. Then again at 2.5K copies globally and a sale window measured in seconds, most people are already locked out of that.

The thing is, I don't give a damn about acquiring limited editions. But I do really like having fancy editions. By all means, have a limited run of the signed and numbered fancy editions. But then have a much wider printing of the not-signed and not-numbered fancy editions so that those who want them can get them.

Now forgive me if I've missed some nuance regarding the checkout system in relation to this whole debacle, but why don't they just put these books up as a Made To Order purchase?
-Anyone who wants a book, can order one.
-GW knows exactly how many are needed.
-Scalpers don't really benefit from buying multiples.

Are there any issues being MtO wouldn't solve/alleviate?

 Snrub wrote:
Now forgive me if I've missed some nuance regarding the checkout system in relation to this whole debacle, but why don't they just put these books up as a Made To Order purchase?
-Anyone who wants a book, can order one.
-GW knows exactly how many are needed.
-Scalpers don't really benefit from buying multiples.

Are there any issues being MtO wouldn't solve/alleviate?

You would have to wait (up to 180 days?) before you get it, instead of "next weekend".
Won't 100% stop scalpers, but those who want one won't be left out.

 Stormonu wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
Now forgive me if I've missed some nuance regarding the checkout system in relation to this whole debacle, but why don't they just put these books up as a Made To Order purchase?
-Anyone who wants a book, can order one.
-GW knows exactly how many are needed.
-Scalpers don't really benefit from buying multiples.

Are there any issues being MtO wouldn't solve/alleviate?

You would have to wait (up to 180 days?) before you get it, instead of "next weekend".
Won't 100% stop scalpers, but those who want one won't be left out.

Aren't the limited editions signed by the author? Big difference between a limited run of 2500 copies and, say, 30,000.

And some authors have pretty rad signatures to boot ha!

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Aren't the limited editions signed by the author? Big difference between a limited run of 2500 copies and, say, 30,000.

Just have them sign the first 2500, and not the rest? Technically it would still make those 2500 'more collectible' so which ever person wants to specifically buy those can do that on ebay, but the rest of us can just have their pretty book. And who cares about the 180 days, if I could have ordered that book (or any 'preorder' for that matter) 180 days ago and actually have gotten it now I would do it instantly. Instead of being 1 book shy of a full collection now and having to be forced to go to ebay and pay a ridiculous amount.

 Stormonu wrote:
I always love it when an institution implements a process to stop the "bad guys" and instead makes the process bad for everyone else except for those they intended to stop in the first place.

Seems to happen far, far too often.

It happens chronically when you use anti customer sales tactics. FOMO in this case.
The obvious solution would've been a single run MTO of them, but that isn't selling as fast and therefore has less pressure on the customer which may impact their decision making process adversly for the company (e.g. not instant impulse buy.) Can't have that.

MoD_Legion wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Aren't the limited editions signed by the author? Big difference between a limited run of 2500 copies and, say, 30,000.

Just have them sign the first 2500, and not the rest? Technically it would still make those 2500 'more collectible' so which ever person wants to specifically buy those can do that on ebay, but the rest of us can just have their pretty book. And who cares about the 180 days, if I could have ordered that book (or any 'preorder' for that matter) 180 days ago and actually have gotten it now I would do it instantly. Instead of being 1 book shy of a full collection now and having to be forced to go to ebay and pay a ridiculous amount.

Have a fixed number signed. Issue those to random orders.

Issue solved.

 Snrub wrote:
Now forgive me if I've missed some nuance regarding the checkout system in relation to this whole debacle, but why don't they just put these books up as a Made To Order purchase?
-Anyone who wants a book, can order one.
-GW knows exactly how many are needed.
-Scalpers don't really benefit from buying multiples.

Are there any issues being MtO wouldn't solve/alleviate?

Wouldn't solve?
Well, it wouldn't help GW's fomo sales strategy. If everyone knew they could get the item, there wouldn't be the mad rush to buy it.

Santtu wrote:
Yeah, cool queue system. I don't care about Horus Heresy at all, just let me look at the catalogue.

Ok. I'm sure you are happy to pay the bill for separate server for GW to do it


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SonofHades wrote:
Quick look on feebay shows about 50 listings for these End books, so all this que and captcha rubbish over 50 resellers or scalpers or whatever.

If GW wanted to do right by the fans they'd put out preorder systems for those that want to get these items instead of the constant churn of limited number releases.

Anger at scalpers is vastly overplayed and about as interesting as jumping through these artificial hoops that GW have put in place to pretend they are combating it.

Eh. Preorder. What stops scalpers from preordering it?

Oh? You mean GW should put UNLIMITED AMOUNT of LIMITED EDITION items?

You realize right you are basically saying "GW shouldn't sell limited edition at all" at which point the people who WANT limited edition are angry because GW doesn't sell what they want?

Why limited editions are bought in the first place is because they are LIMITED compared to UNLIMITED.

You are in essence saying GW should do print run of 0 for limited editions. Which is fine. But then that leaves unhappy customers. NOBODY then gets what they want.

If GW sells 1500 limited edition that gives you 1500 people who got the book they want.

If GW makes unlimited amount of books...Then it's 0 who got what they want because nobody got LIMITED edition book because it's actually UNLIMITED edition book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Klickor wrote:
They should have a different site that is only for the preorders so it doesn't interrupt customers who want to shop normally.

Good idea. Are you willing to pay the bill? I'm sure GW is happy to open up another server for people if you pay the bill

Don't demand GW to double their fees for some days in the year if you aren't willing to pay the bill.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SonofHades wrote:


You and your group of 6000 plus should be able to order these special edition books without any hassle, scalpers or no scalpers. Unfortunately GW printed what? 2500 copies. And then wants you to digitally que for however long at 10am only to find out all the books already sold out at 09:59.

So you want them to print unlimited print run? Ie make print run of limited edition to 0...So NOBODY gets what they want. Rather than 2500 getting limited edition NOBODY gets limited edition.

Good job. You denied everybody what they wanted.

If you want unlimited book there ACTUALLY IS ONE AVAILABLE. You DO know there's more than 2500 of that book available? Just not LIMITED EDITION. Which is limited becase there's only limited amount of books. If you remove the limited amount from the print run then it obviously isn't limited anymore and thus value of limited edition vanishes and nobody gets what they wanted.

tneva82 wrote:

Santtu wrote:
Yeah, cool queue system. I don't care about Horus Heresy at all, just let me look at the catalogue.

Ok. I'm sure you are happy to pay the bill for separate server for GW to do it


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SonofHades wrote:
Quick look on feebay shows about 50 listings for these End books, so all this que and captcha rubbish over 50 resellers or scalpers or whatever.

If GW wanted to do right by the fans they'd put out preorder systems for those that want to get these items instead of the constant churn of limited number releases.

Anger at scalpers is vastly overplayed and about as interesting as jumping through these artificial hoops that GW have put in place to pretend they are combating it.

Eh. Preorder. What stops scalpers from preordering it?

Oh? You mean GW should put UNLIMITED AMOUNT of LIMITED EDITION items?

You realize right you are basically saying "GW shouldn't sell limited edition at all" at which point the people who WANT limited edition are angry because GW doesn't sell what they want?

Why limited editions are bought in the first place is because they are LIMITED compared to UNLIMITED.

You are in essence saying GW should do print run of 0 for limited editions. Which is fine. But then that leaves unhappy customers. NOBODY then gets what they want.

If GW sells 1500 limited edition that gives you 1500 people who got the book they want.

If GW makes unlimited amount of books...Then it's 0 who got what they want because nobody got LIMITED edition book because it's actually UNLIMITED edition book.

Technically a limited pre-order window would still make the product limited, but the exact number of copies in circulation would vary depending on how popular the product was during the preorder period.

I also wouldn't say nobody gets what they want. Some purchasers of limited editions do so for the exclusivity. Others do so because they like the product in its own right and would buy it if it wasn't limited (they want the premium product, not the limited product). These groups are not mutually exclusive, but on the whole group 1 will be unhappy and group 2 will be happy by a move away from limited products. However, I do think that the FOMO of limited editions does probably increase sales in the short term for the latter group who are not looking for limited products specifically, and that is probably the main driver of GW's limited edition strategy.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Klickor wrote:
They should have a different site that is only for the preorders so it doesn't interrupt customers who want to shop normally.

Good idea. Are you willing to pay the bill? I'm sure GW is happy to open up another server for people if you pay the bill

Don't demand GW to double their fees for some days in the year if you aren't willing to pay the bill.

GW is likely to loose customers whilst their website is effectively bricked by the limited edition sales. It is up to them if they think the lost sales and goodwill from this is worth more or less than separate hosting space for popular orders.

A strict MTO slot still creates a Limited Quantity.

Even if you make it just a couple of days, or even 24 hours.

You still get “FOMO”, and few end up going without, as the only limit is whether you’ve got the money at the time to order.

Make a certain amount signed, dispatching those at random among the orders, and there’s some extra incentive.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
Now forgive me if I've missed some nuance regarding the checkout system in relation to this whole debacle, but why don't they just put these books up as a Made To Order purchase?
-Anyone who wants a book, can order one.
-GW knows exactly how many are needed.
-Scalpers don't really benefit from buying multiples.

Are there any issues being MtO wouldn't solve/alleviate?

Wouldn't solve?
Well, it wouldn't help GW's fomo sales strategy. If everyone knew they could get the item, there wouldn't be the mad rush to buy it.

If you have a limited preorder window, the product is still limited and FOMO is still present.

This is actually the exact approach GW takes with the Warhammer + exclusives- they essentially have a one-year limited period to get them, but if you pay for an annual subscription during that time you can definitely get the mini. The mini is still limited, but how limited varies on how many annual subscriptions were purchased over a year. Subscribe too late, you miss the mini. GW can still use this to generate FOMO when the minis change over too.

Personally, I think this is a much better approach than the current one for customers. I suspect it is not favoured by GW due to a reduced ability to hype releases with the long lag between order and shipping.

MTO hinders scalpers in the way that they cannot earn quick money

of course they can buy 500 books on MTO and sell them on ebay, but with up to 180 days waiting time you it is more of a problem to sell it before you receive it you need to have the spare money to buy 500 books

OOP Books sell for a lot of money among collectors, no matter how limited the initial run was
but no one bought 500 copies of the Liber books to have a stock to sell for triple the price once production stops
because if you cannot make profit fast, it is not worth doing it

 kodos wrote:
MTO hinders scalpers in the way that they cannot earn quick money

of course they can buy 500 books on MTO and sell them on ebay, but with up to 180 days waiting time you it is more of a problem to sell it before you receive it you need to have the spare money to buy 500 books

OOP Books sell for a lot of money among collectors, no matter how limited the initial run was
but no one bought 500 copies of the Liber books to have a stock to sell for triple the price once production stops
because if you cannot make profit fast, it is not worth doing it

Supply and demand definitely influences the price of OOP books though. A very common OOP book is likely to be cheaper than a very rare one, unless the demand is much higher for the common book.

I can buy a 3rd edition 40k codex for £10. That is barely different to the price when they were new, and they've been OOP for 20 years! Low demand, relatively high supply.

technically the 3rd Edi Codex is not oop but still in print as it was replaced with an updated version

same as you can get a 20 year old encyclopedia for cheap not because there are so many around but because the updated version is still in print

Warhammer Fantasy army books were sold for much higher prices, although a lot of them were around but because the game stopped to be people knew that there won't be a new version
when 40k stops tomorrow, the price of 3rd Editon books

tneva82 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Santtu wrote:
Yeah, cool queue system. I don't care about Horus Heresy at all, just let me look at the catalogue.

Ok. I'm sure you are happy to pay the bill for separate server for GW to do it

tneva82 wrote:

Klickor wrote:
They should have a different site that is only for the preorders so it doesn't interrupt customers who want to shop normally.

Good idea. Are you willing to pay the bill? I'm sure GW is happy to open up another server for people if you pay the bill

Don't demand GW to double their fees for some days in the year if you aren't willing to pay the bill.

That's not how web hosting works...like, at all. You don't need a separate server for this. There are out-of-the-box solutions that will allow you to set up queues on specific URLs within your site, or subsections, or sets of URLs. There is literally no reason why GW has to block off their entire site behind a queue because they've released a fancy book that day.

It's just another example of how terrible their new website is. These kinds of issues are well-known problems with a variety of solutions. The current implementation suggests GW didn't think about them at all, and their chosen developers also didn't think about it at the planning and requirements stage.

tneva82 wrote:

Klickor wrote:
They should have a different site that is only for the preorders so it doesn't interrupt customers who want to shop normally.

Good idea. Are you willing to pay the bill? I'm sure GW is happy to open up another server for people if you pay the bill

Don't demand GW to double their fees for some days in the year if you aren't willing to pay the bill.

It would cost them barely anything at all to have a separate site that handles preorders and then let their normal store just run as normal. They shouldn't make a complete copy for the entire site, just the preorder part. It might even be a cheaper solution since they only need to dedicate extra server bandwith during new releases for it and can have their normal store run on slightly less than it does now most of the time. Their over all use of server load would be way lower since right now you have people who aren't after preorders spending half their saturdays queuing and putting load on the servers when they normally would have been done in a couple of minutes. They would also not have downtime on their regular webstore that right now loses them money when people who aren't interested in preorders can't even spend their money.

But since GW is even more inept when it comes to IT than when it comes to writing good rules I can't see them managing this. But this would be a cost saving measure that could increase overall sales and not cost us customers a single cent extra if done properly.

Of course, we all remember well that when GW canned their Forgeworld site (must have been sooo expensive!), they were able to pass on those savings to us customers...

 kodos wrote:
technically the 3rd Edi Codex is not oop but still in print as it was replaced with an updated version

same as you can get a 20 year old encyclopedia for cheap not because there are so many around but because the updated version is still in print

Warhammer Fantasy army books were sold for much higher prices, although a lot of them were around but because the game stopped to be people knew that there won't be a new version
when 40k stops tomorrow, the price of 3rd Editon books

Sort of true, although later editions of 40k publications are normally wildly different and not iterative in the way most book editions are.

Eitherway, that merely factors into demand. Demand is low because a later edition usable for the current version of the game exists.

Compare to, say, a 1st edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. A later edition of the book is still in print, but the original first editions have a lot of demand and low supply and therefore a lot of value. This is also true of limited edition books when the standard edition remains in print. More limited books floating around will reduce the price per book.

So OOP isn't the only factor, but that provides a hard cap on the supply.

tneva82 wrote:

Why limited editions are bought in the first place is because they are LIMITED compared to UNLIMITED.

Uh no. I'm fairly sure actual warhammer fans that buy limited edition warhammer books buy them because they look cool. It's scalpers and 'investors' that buy them specifically because they are limited. People that actually read their books don't give a gak about whether it's limited or not, they just like it because it's a premium product compared to the normal hardback.

MoD_Legion wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Why limited editions are bought in the first place is because they are LIMITED compared to UNLIMITED.

Uh no. I'm fairly sure actual warhammer fans that buy limited edition warhammer books buy them because they look cool. It's scalpers and 'investors' that buy them specifically because they are limited. People that actually read their books don't give a gak about whether it's limited or not, they just like it because it's a premium product compared to the normal hardback.

Yes exactly.

No que
No captcha
No FOMO, though I guess this is not an entirely one sided problem.
No bad will, you can get all your special edition bound books with cool map and importantly don't miss out on say book III of a series because you got hit by a que when the likelihood is the books already sold out 09.59.
So yes a print run of say 10,000 world wide is still a limited edition for those that do care. But importantly the fans get what they want.

Unfortunately I do think GW is obsessed with product churn, don't really care who buys their stuff, queit/captcha system are performative and the que system doesn't appear to have stopped the dozens of feebay scalpers. There is a point where this stuff becomes too obnoxious like cookie menus on some of the more unfriendly hobby sites and more users are switched of by it.

Gw gets far too much leeway with anti consumer practices like FOMO.

tneva82 wrote:

Klickor wrote:
They should have a different site that is only for the preorders so it doesn't interrupt customers who want to shop normally.

Good idea. Are you willing to pay the bill? I'm sure GW is happy to open up another server for people if you pay the bill

Don't demand GW to double their fees for some days in the year if you aren't willing to pay the bill.

Didn't GW just spend almost $14 MILLION dollars on their new pile of crap website? This isn't about money, it's about competence, as has been pointed out, there's several options for GW to have set up their site differently, part off a separate section for a queued portion of the site that has new releases is one of those options.

BL has tried different release methods. The HH novella Tallarn: Executioner was released as a limited signed and numbered MTO. There was the gold edition (numbered, extra art, and signed) and silver edition (numbered but no art or signature) of Aurelian. Even the mass market paperbacks had different color foil on the covers to show what print run they where from, gold, silver, or bronze, the exception being Horus Rising which got a platinum anniversary edition.