To interesting times

[Wolfshade]

There is something different about GW of today compared with even last year. We saw hints of this like the short lived "Eddie" on Facebook.
A character that seemed to be widely embraced by the community but almost as soon as it was up, it was closed back down followed by a withdraw of GW from the social media platform, other than just a standard one-directional method of pushing the information out.

Then we started to see hints of personality emerging, reminding some commentators of the GW of old breaking with the clinical faceless GW-corp, with the emergence of the Regimental Standard (https://regimental-standard.com/).

Then we had the big FAQ collaboration. GW asking for clarifications and FAQs from the community then publishing draft versions of them on Facebook for people to read and respond to them. Acknowledging other groups inputs such as the Las Vegas Open tournament team. The recognition of this tournament is something different, for those gamers outside of the UK there are no official tournaments and GW did little to support or even acknowledge their existence. [For those in the UK, they will see the regular tournaments held out of Warhammer World], then announcing that the community team would be at adepticon, which is a not a GW-only tournament, engaging in tournaments that they aren't hosting and aren't GW-only is a major step change.

Now we have Warhammer Community (https://www.warhammer-community.com/). While this is far from being the vibrant two-way conversation that we see on various fora (such as this) with gamers able to talk openly about their hobby, share their projects raising questions etc. But we are in early days, will we see it having a discussion board? If they do how will it respond to criticism, engagement or shutting down? Certianly, how it handles this will certainly set the tone of whether this a full change or a halfway engagement.

Then the wonderful Warhammer TV, indeed it was the Black XL which compelled me to write this post, then thinking of it I am reminded of the plastic primarch bin incident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_BBY0-zO1MChaos

It all looks quite positive and a well thought out engagement with the community, showing the sorts of personality we've not seen since Fat Bloke.

Will this new direction be to everyone's liking? No, you can't please all the people all of them time, but I for one am enjoying this ride as it continues.

[Denzark]

My gaming group is finding this to be particularly epic times in terms of community engagement. I'm sure someone will be happy to pipe up and tell us hhow much better FFG do it or how PP have always done this - but for the veterans, this is like the GW ship has done a 180 and is on course back to where it used to be.

I only hope that it isn't spoiled by people crayoning over posts with sarcasm or hostility, leading to lock downs.

[Psychosplodge]

Definitely starting to feel like the days before the sterile corporate days.

[Erik Setzer]

There's just one item left for them to address, and it's a big one, and it'll take swallowing their pride and admitting they've said some stupid things. They need to do a pricing adjustment across the board, and bring some (a lot of) items down. They shove items together in bigger boxes so they're then priced more like what the market will work with, but the problem is that means you have to drop $150-$200 or so at a time to get things at a proper price point. "Grown up" companies recognize when stuff isn't priced right to sell, and alter it. They aren't going to look bad just because they claimed the pricing is because of quality, because everyone knows that's a stupid comment and suggests, for example, that somehow 30K models lose over 50% of their quality by being packaged together with rules and board pieces and such in a game, or various other selections of models suddenly lose huge amounts of quality by being packaged together (two Knights together with a building and some game rules also somehow drops to low-end quality with that silly idea).

I know, some people don't like me complaining about this. But I remember when I was introduced to the hobby. My folks didn't have much money. My dad scraped together some hobby money and was able to get forces for himself, me, and my brother. Granted, armies were smaller at the time as well, but the key point is, things were affordable enough he could drop a unit here or there (maybe even two!) into his budget. Now, someone with an equivalent budget wouldn't be able to do a small starter force, unless they tried to save for weeks or months to get a bundle box... which isn't really something people in that shape are able to do (because if you've got money in the bank, invariably something will pop up that needs it, just one of the weird things that happens when you're on the poor side). I can afford this stuff myself now just fine, because I turned a hobby into a decent paying job, but my brothers couldn't think of trying to work GW into their budgets these days. And that's sad to me. GW tried to price itself into a niche for folks with more money, and it nearly wrecked them. But they won't walk back from that. They use tricks to put out models at better prices without fixing the pricing scheme. I'd much rather see fewer collected boxes and see, for example, a Tactical Squad fall to $25-$30, and characters back down to $15-$20, which is really all they're worth, not the obscene $30 they are for an infantry model now.

GW's doing plenty of things right, but I still can't bring myself to recommend them to people, because the affordability is still bad. Until they put on their big boy pants and admit they could use a pricing restructure, I can't give them too much praise.

[Denzark]

Thing is Erik, is that a business being 'grown up' and 'recognising when stuff isn't priced right to sell' needs a key thing for them to come to that point of recognition and make the reductions - they need to not be selling sufficient quantities.

What evidence do we have that their sales are insufficient to the point they need to sell cheaper?

Not just an opinion that they are inaccessible due to price (a 'start collecting' box in the UK costs about the same as a single PS4 game) but that their current price policy puts the company at risk of failure.

I don't see that personally - although I entirely agree the price of single plastic characters at £18 is absolutely ridiculous.

[Wolfshade]

Price is an issue, but as Denzark points out they aren't exactly not selling, indeed, they have been posting fairly healthy profits for quite a while. For me the concern, and this is more a UK based thing, is the effect that online sales is having on the game as an whole. GW for all of its ills does have a physical presence in the high street and does bring new gamers in, teach and support them with their wonderful staff. Online stores are good for the existing gamer who has a club and knows how to play and is already engaged they get their 25% off the top and it makes for a cheaper hobby, but it makes it harder to compete with a physical store.

But yes, the getting started price is very steep, but then is it compared with an xbox or ps4?

[Alaric]

Interesting perspectives. As always I go with: Gw owes you the product they sell and thats it. There is no need to "engage" customers just cuz we have social media platforms available. If I was Gw I'd keep all the players at arms length, preferably with gloves on :P
Nothing short of stolen GW financials on a model by model basis from GW itself would reveal the markup and if the markup did get revealed it would change nothing. They would charge as they see fit and we can take it or leave it. The way it should be. Customers are not as important as they think they are.

The prices will never be cheap enuff. Ever. I play 30K now and ho-lee christ is it spensive. Thank god for the Betrayl box set.

I like the new direction in terms of quality. That Lord of Change is phenomenal. But I don't feel the need to ever talk to GW about anything. Just make the damn models and they can piss off back to their hidey hole. This whole "we have social media so corporations are beholden to us" garbage needs to stop. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

Good to Cyu again Erik. Not sure if you member the last PM I sent you but uh...Trump won. I laughed my balls off when he did. Not trying to open this to Trump just had to point it out to Erik Cuz of our last convo.

[Wolfshade]

It all depends what you mean by "mark up". The physical cost of producing a miniature is probably the smallest part of the whole thing, the costs go to r n d, pay tax, pensions, shops etc..
But you can kinda work out a BCR, then extrapolate upwards.

[Alaric]

It all depends what you mean by "mark up". The physical cost of producing a miniature is probably the smallest part of the whole thing, the costs go to r n d, pay tax, pensions, shops etc..
But you can kinda work out a BCR, then extrapolate upwards.

Just meant that you could show them where every cent goes and it still would be too expensive.

[Wolfshade]

Just meant that you could show them where every cent goes and it still would be too expensive.

OIC It didn't come across that way.
Thoguh having just bough Codex: Cult Mechanicus I do feel slightly aggrevied owing to its brevity and light touch of units, really it should be rolled into the Skitarii. Ho hum