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evilmiera posted:About those rumors of an End Times thing for 40k, has that been confirmed yet or did it all turn out to be just more fanmade crap? No that's happening, just very slowly. Avenging Dentist posted:Poorly-rendered words: I'm the engraved "EXTERMINATE" markings on the wings like some kind of catholic dalek Not a viking posted:The biggest national chain for nerd poo poo and games recently stopped taking in Infinity Ah heck  Infinity still looks okay, right, or is this a major revenue hit?
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Aug 22, 2016 11:35
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There looks to be a walkway obscured by the near wall. I am slow at posting.
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Aug 22, 2016 11:42
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I love Games Workshop and I'm going to give them money.
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Aug 22, 2016 11:50
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Hogge Wild posted:I love Games Workshop and I'm going to give them money. same
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Aug 22, 2016 12:53
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Moola posted:same m...mods???
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Aug 22, 2016 12:56
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:m...mods??? you fool, moola is a mod now
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Aug 22, 2016 13:44
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Wait a minute, that's not Moola... IT'S ALOOM 
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Aug 22, 2016 14:35
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Safety Factor posted:Why hello there. I mean, I've played a decent amount of 30k because between me and the people I know we own a ton of random marine poo poo from the past three decades and don't give a gently caress about the actual models. It's considerably better balanced than 40k, that is just a straight fact. It turns out removing a large amount of the chaff and non-power armored stuff from 40k means that the statistical curve gets much more reasonable on an army to army basis, and in general the whole 30k system is much less focused on formations and free points than 40k is. What you end up with is a more compact game with less outlier rules, a game that's generally more streamlined because the rules that most armies share are increased (since it's like 80% marines), even though every army has probably about 50% too many wargear and weapon options for individual units it tends to usually boil down to mostly basic stuff unless someone REALLY has a boner for weird patterned Ad-Mech guns, etc. I mean, it's still 40k, so it suffers from a rear end-load of issues that are inherent on a system level, but 30k is genuinely as close to a "fixed" version of the modern 40k ruleset as you can produce without completely going back to the drawing board.
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Aug 22, 2016 14:37
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NTRabbit posted:Wait a minute, that's not Moola... IT'S ALOOM AoS is good and cool
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Aug 22, 2016 14:43
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30k is more balanced than current 40k. However 30k is also less balanced than 4th edition 40k. The free points, formations, etc are not an integral part of 40k and have only been put in as a money grab more blatant than limited time Overwatch skins.
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Aug 22, 2016 14:45
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Drone posted:That's super Star Wars-y and good, but uh... how does the pilot get into the front seat of the cockpit? Very carefully.
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Aug 22, 2016 15:05
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Avenging Dentist posted:It just looks like the Valkyrie's overweight, Hot Topic-shopping brother to me. Atlas Hugged posted:I remember in the 90s and the early 00s, one of the only bits of outreach GW did to its fans was in its careful explanations that no, seriously, molds are expensive and even though we haven't updated the models at all, we have to raise prices... for reasons. Then they raised the prices on the same ancient Eldar jetbike model they had never redone until it was twice its old price and I came to my senses about what sort of bullshit they were selling.
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Aug 22, 2016 15:05
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Drone posted:That's super Star Wars-y and good, but uh... how does the pilot get into the front seat of the cockpit? There's a door there at the back of the cockpit and maybe I could see the rear pilot crawling in there, but the front pilot looks pretty hopeless. Also the idea of vehicles in wargames that are insanely hard to get into sound about right to me. spectralent fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Aug 22, 2016 |
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Aug 22, 2016 15:09
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Terrible Opinions posted:Terrible Opinions
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Aug 22, 2016 15:10
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Atlas Hugged posted:One thing I've always found fascinating about GW's pricing is how it affects people's perspective of the pricing of competitors. When people look at a GW model and it's $100 for a single plastic kit and then see that they can get a good sized Kings of War army for that price, the reaction isn't that GW is overpriced, but that Mantic (or whoever) must have some terrible secret that's keeping their prices down. Slave labor? Not compensating their artists? Selling at a loss to try and gain market share? I remember in the 90s and the early 00s, one of the only bits of outreach GW did to its fans was in its careful explanations that no, seriously, molds are expensive and even though we haven't updated the models at all, we have to raise prices... for reasons. And fans went through the same cycle every time. First was outrage followed by threatening to quit the hobby forever. Then there was a rush on models before the impending price hike and they swore that would be the last they purchased. Then GW released a new codex or edition and surprise surprise these guys came back every single time. Not defending GW's pricing, but Mantic does have a secret - finance all of your initial production costs via Kickstarter, rather than through retail channels. Once you clear that initial big buy-in, everything else thereafter is profit (fun fact: a plastic sprue literally costs pennies to produce.) When GW produces a model, they have to recoup that cost by selling x amount of models to retailers. It's two different business models you're comparing.
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Aug 22, 2016 15:45
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berzerkmonkey posted:Not defending GW's pricing, but Mantic does have a secret - finance all of your initial production costs via Kickstarter, rather than through retail channels. Once you clear that initial big buy-in, everything else thereafter is profit (fun fact: a plastic sprue literally costs pennies to produce.) When GW produces a model, they have to recoup that cost by selling x amount of models to retailers. It's two different business models you're comparing. Moola posted:Giving Blizzard money.
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Aug 22, 2016 15:51
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berzerkmonkey posted:Not defending GW's pricing, but Mantic does have a secret - finance all of your initial production costs via Kickstarter, rather than through retail channels. Once you clear that initial big buy-in, everything else thereafter is profit (fun fact: a plastic sprue literally costs pennies to produce.) When GW produces a model, they have to recoup that cost by selling x amount of models to retailers. It's two different business models you're comparing. Is this where I'm supposed to weep for the company with no debt who never does market research? This is literally the prerogative of the business: to maximize profit while minimizing costs. I don't consider GW evil for operating how they do, but I do consider them to have poor business acumen because when I look at their prices and compare them to their competitors, I shop elsewhere and more and more people are doing the same. You're right that Mantic has wisely taken advantage of the digital age and social media to engage directly with their consumers in a mutually beneficial relationship. The horror. It's not great for retail, sure, but GW shits all over retail anyway so it's not like we should be awarding them points there. But every business ever has had to figure out how to launch a new product at a reasonable price in order to start recouping costs or debt and to start turning a profit as quickly as possible. However, these companies don't just pick an arbitrary price and say if they sell X units at that price then they'll turn a profit within X months or years. They figure out what the demands of the market are and set their expectations around an appropriate price and time frame. They then support this with promotions to boost or encourage sales. GW has never done any of that. They see a game, or army, or unit not selling and don't ask why, they just kill it. They actually raise the prices on old kits rather than dropping them in price in order to push sales later in the product's life. They're very shortsighted honestly. As far as I can tell, they release a kit at the absolute highest price they can and then push it up from there. Old kits are kept artificially expensive to make them appear premium when in reality they're a decade old or older. There's a reason why when people burn out from GW they burn out hard and become as cynical and critical as we are.
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Aug 22, 2016 16:43
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GW isn't evil they're just aggressively dumb.
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Aug 22, 2016 16:49
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S.J. posted:GW isn't evil they're just aggressively dumb. actually i worked out gw is actually a pseudonym of noted german dictator adolf hitler last thread so
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Aug 22, 2016 16:54
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Atlas Hugged posted:Is this where I'm supposed to weep for the company with no debt who never does market research? Terrible Opinions posted:Except that's a secret that ultimately benefits the consumer. So good on Mantic. Also, KS is not a sustainable business model, and Mantic is going to have to start making inroads with retailers if they have any hope of sticking around for the long run.
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Aug 22, 2016 16:54
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spectralent posted:actually i worked out gw is actually a pseudonym of noted german dictator adolf hitler last thread so Whelp nevermind
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Aug 22, 2016 17:01
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berzerkmonkey posted:Also, KS is not a sustainable business model, and Mantic is going to have to start making inroads with retailers if they have any hope of sticking around for the long run. I don't buy this at all. If GW said they were going to kickstarter to do a Sisters line people would be excited as gently caress. GW would be patted on the back for having such amazing forward thinking and reaching out to the fans.
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Aug 22, 2016 17:01
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Atlas Hugged posted:I don't buy this at all. If GW said they were going to kickstarter to do a Sisters line people would be excited as gently caress. GW would be patted on the back for having such amazing forward thinking and reaching out to the fans. Haha, no they wouldn't. People would be rightly railing that GW has enough money and shouldn't be allowed to use a platform intended for struggling artists. They are a publicly traded company - it would be like Hasbro funding a version of Ker-Plunk through KS.
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Aug 22, 2016 17:09
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Atlas Hugged posted:I don't buy this at all. If GW said they were going to kickstarter to do a Sisters line people would be excited as gently caress. GW would be patted on the back for having such amazing forward thinking and reaching out to the fans. GW also has incredibly strong retail presence (even if you remove their lovely storefronts). Mantic has Kickstarters, a webshop that sometimes just doesn't work, and the occasional store who might stock KoW stuff. Their revolving door of Kickstarters actively discourages stores from purchasing the product, since those people who are most interested in buying it will already have backed the KS and gotten more bang for their buck than if they had picked it up at a B&M. Though hasn't Mantic already said there will be no more KoW kickstarters for exactly this reason?
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Aug 22, 2016 17:10
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berzerkmonkey posted:Haha, no they wouldn't. People would be rightly railing that GW has enough money and shouldn't be allowed to use a platform intended for struggling artists. They are a publicly traded company - it would be like Hasbro funding a version of Ker-Plunk through KS. The people who would be critical of them are the people who are already critical of them. Current GW fans would continue to throw money at them the way they always do and thank GW for the opportunity.
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Aug 22, 2016 17:11
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Drone posted:GW also has incredibly strong retail presence (even if you remove their lovely storefronts). Mantic has Kickstarters, a webshop that sometimes just doesn't work, and the occasional store who might stock KoW stuff. Their revolving door of Kickstarters actively discourages stores from purchasing the product, since those people who are most interested in buying it will already have backed the KS and gotten more bang for their buck than if they had picked it up at a B&M. Yes, Mantic has stated they will no longer be doing Kickstarters for KoW as it is now self-funding and they're working to increase its retail presence. We'll see if they're successful. But again, they're one of only many competitors GW has at the moment and they're the one most prominently using Kickstarter. I actually don't see an issue with their approach at all. They set it up so that multiple factions will be available for purchase at launch as opposed to, say, Gates of Antares where they are very slowly building up the range because they were forced to take a more traditional funding route. Kickstarter helps them launch the product and then momentum continues because they have a diverse range to sell. If they have to keep going back to the Kickstarter well to keep their "specialist" games going, then so be it. That's still more support than GW gives theirs.
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Aug 22, 2016 17:15
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spectralent posted:Infinity still looks okay, right, or is this a major revenue hit? Oh yeah, its just that I live in a table top gaming backwater  E: the biggest chain of nerd poo poo stores is literally the only one in the country and it has four stores 
Not a viking fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Aug 22, 2016 |
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Aug 22, 2016 17:41
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berzerkmonkey posted:Haha, no they wouldn't. People would be rightly railing that GW has enough money and shouldn't be allowed to use a platform intended for struggling artists. They are a publicly traded company - it would be like Hasbro funding a version of Ker-Plunk through KS. Like major game developers going to kickstarter? KS is already a big-business investment platform. Not a viking posted:Oh yeah, its just that I live in a table top gaming backwater ah cool well not cool but you get what i mean
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Aug 22, 2016 17:53
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Being a publicly-traded company does not preclude Games Workshop or any other company from running a kickstarter. The "intent" of kickstarter to be a funding platform for startups is both apocryphal and irrelevant: today, it is a platform for everything from one-person hopes-and-dreams begging, to well-established corporations running large promotional campaigns. What prevents GW from running a kickstarter is inertia. The company is extremely inflexible with its business processes and dogmatic in its beliefs. Trying a wildly new way of delivering a new product is simply not possible for this organization. It's a very conservative company - not in the political sense, but in the sense that it does not easily pivot. Even a major sweeping change like dumping Warhammer Fantasy in order to release Age of Sigmar was a project spanning at least two years, involving most of its miniature line remaining intact, and using exactly the same internal processes for writing books and sculpting miniatures, doing little or no testing of those rules, throwing darts at dartboards to figure out pricing, and then foisting the product onto the customer base. The major "innovation" of Age of Sigmar was a honest-to-god actual advertising campaign, alebit a laughably inept one. GW put up a new statue, heavily promoted the game on its website, and then... woah, actually attended a couple of conventions and stuff! GW "advertised" so ineptly because it neither understands nor actually believes in advertising. I think Kirby and Rountree just sort of sensed that such a big change would need big promotion, and then had no idea (or in-house expertise they listened to) of how to do that effectively. The thing is, GW executive staff do not understand how to differentiate a product's physical quality from the other factors that affect sales. We know this for sure, because they said so in their latest annual report (page 7 of this PDF): quote:Product quality Think about that for a second. GW "measures" quality by sell-through. If a product sells well, why, it must be a high-quality product! Actually, "sell-through" (which just means "sales") of a plastic model product is driven by multiple factors:
GW's annual report claims to dismiss the entire question of product quality with a simple "did it sell" metric. If this is really true, it's yet another astounding revelation by the company: it literally does not bother to distinguish whether a new plastic model kit, game, or rulebook sold poorly because of defects in its quality, problems with its utility, issues of timing or availability, effectiveness of advertising, or (and this one's a doozy) existence of competing products. What GW is actually measuring is an aggregate of all of these factors. That's still a useful thing to measure, of course... you do need to know how well your products sell, both individually and as coherent product lines. But, no wonder GW does things like kill Tomb Kings - the products are selling poorly, therefore they must be poor quality. And now, multiple companies are making replacement Tomb Kings products, because it turns out the actual quality of those minis (with the exception of the very old and fiddly to assemble plastic skeleton models) was more or less fine... the problem was utility. Tomb Kings' rules were bad and they sucked on the table, and customers figured that out. GW did nothing whatsoever to fix that problem, allowing it to persist for years and actually making it worse with subsequent much superior army book releases. Age of Sigmar's rules also didn't somehow revitalize tomb kings, so... welp, cancel the "poor quality" product line! In order to actually decide to run a kickstarter campaign, this organization would have to first recognize that using a different model of advertising might affect sales, which is impossible if you think the only thing that affects sales is "quality" and your customer service. Which, per that report, is the only other "key performance indicator:" quote:Outstanding customer service See? You measure the "effectiveness and efficiency" of your in-store sales staff solely by complaints and how quickly your customer service staff handle complaints. Nevermind that, for years, Kirby has repeatedly obsessed over the idea that getting exactly the "right people" into every position is paramount for the company (as if hiring wasn't important for every company on earth), and therefore Kirby & Co. must be aware that staffing affects sales... sales are used as the only metric of "quality." So that's self-contradictory. How can sales be a measure of quality if sales are affected by staffing? Does that mean the quality of your products is a variable affected by who is selling them? Ridiculous. Anyway, yeah: advertising and promotion is something the company must be aware of, since it does it, a little bit: with its magazines, by attending the occasional con or trade show, with updates to its website, etc. But it does not make any allowances for the idea that advertising could be a factor in how well products sell, so it's almost as if the company doesn't believe in advertising. It does it, but assumes all products of equal "quality" will sell equally well (I guess assuming the staff meets its standards)? If you believe advertising has no effect on sales, you cannot take the huge step of running a major pre-sales advertising campaign on Kickstarter. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Aug 22, 2016 |
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Aug 22, 2016 18:32
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S.J. posted:GW isn't evil they're just aggressively dumb. No, they're evil too. A friend of mine has been looking into how GW's distribution to FLGSes suddenly worsens the moment a GW shop opens in the area. Incorrect orders, new releases not getting to FLGSes, constant runaround with "we'll overnight it to you" and it never arrives, etc. If substantiated, this is illegal.
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Aug 22, 2016 18:57
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Also the whole suing your fans thing, the abusive way the company treats its employees, and the way it basically lies to customers - such as by having its sales staff aggressively sell products that it has already decided to cancel.
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Aug 22, 2016 19:04
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Avenging Dentist posted:No, they're evil too. A friend of mine has been looking into how GW's distribution to FLGSes suddenly worsens the moment a GW shop opens in the area. Incorrect orders, new releases not getting to FLGSes, constant runaround with "we'll overnight it to you" and it never arrives, etc. If substantiated, this is illegal. You're going to hear about those things, but you won't hear about it when it doesn't happen. We got a GW store in the area about 2 years ago and there are still 3-4 stores having no problems stocking their products. GW has some pieces of poo poo working for it but also some good people. It does a good job of putting up a lovely face, though. Leperflesh posted:Also the whole suing your fans thing, the abusive way the company treats its employees, and the way it basically lies to customers - such as by having its sales staff aggressively sell products that it has already decided to cancel. this, though, ugghhhhh S.J. fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Aug 22, 2016 |
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Aug 22, 2016 19:05
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S.J. posted:You're going to hear about those things, but you won't hear about it when it doesn't happen. We got a GW store in the area about 2 years ago and there are still 3-4 stores having no problems stocking their products. GW has some pieces of poo poo working for it but also some good people. It does a good job of putting up a lovely face, though. If they're doing it at all (and it's not just a run of bad luck), it's still illegal. It would also probably be worth correlating it with when the stores opened, since they might be doing this only in areas with new GW stores as a temporary thing to help establish their new shop in the local market.
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Aug 22, 2016 19:08
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Avenging Dentist posted:If they're doing it at all (and it's not just a run of bad luck), it's still illegal. It would also probably be worth correlating it with when the stores opened, since they might be doing this only in areas with new GW stores as a temporary thing to help establish their new shop in the local market. Point being, from where I'm standing, it's just as likely the result of a lovely or about-to-be-fired rep who knows it, or accounts being changed up permanently or temporarily, or whatever, not that it wouldn't be immoral as hell. I'm more than willing to believe actual evidence but I'm not ready to believe what might just be hearsay. Is there anything in particular your friend has been able to find information on? S.J. fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Aug 22, 2016 |
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Aug 22, 2016 19:19
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S.J. posted:Point being, it's just as likely the result of a lovely or about-to-be-fired rep who knows it, or whatever, not that it wouldn't be immoral as hell. This was all prompted by the shop my friend works at being royally dicked around by their GW rep. My understanding is that he's been contacting other shops he has contacts with to see if this is happening consistently or if he just has a lovely rep, and so far it sounds like a few folks have chimed in and said they've been having the same issue. It's probably too early to say more with any certainty, but even with the limited evidence now, it's pretty worrying. Unless by chance all these shops have the same rep, I doubt it's something like a single rogue rep at GW. If I had to guess, it's probably the brainchild of whoever's in charge of the current push to open more GW stores. It's certainly consistent with their model of, "Wait for FLGSes to open up the wargaming market in an area and then set up a GW shop there to reap the rewards." Take it with a grain of salt for sure, but I wouldn't put it past GW to pull something like this.
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Aug 22, 2016 19:35
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Honestly the fact that GW operates as it does and has still managed to post profits and retain such cash reserves is amazing.
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Aug 22, 2016 19:50
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That has been their expansion strategy for decades. Supply a LGS, build a customer base, open a GW, gently caress with LGS supply.
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Aug 22, 2016 19:54
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berzerkmonkey posted:Yeah, but GW could never get away with that - can you imagine the fallout if GW went to KS and tried to fund, say, a new Sisters of Battle line? They would (rightfully) be burned at the stake. remember when they dragged their feet on wood elves and the GW apologists were like "no poo poo they aren't doing wood elves they're the lowest selling army!" but then the second they came out with the new wood elf book it immediately flew off the shelves? i mean hell the tree people are now one of the premier AoS factions and got updates before any of the other elves did
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Aug 22, 2016 19:54
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That's quality, obviously. Tree elfs are higher quality than, say, brettonians.
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Aug 22, 2016 19:55
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Leperflesh posted:That's quality, obviously. Tree elfs are higher quality than, say, brettonians. i imagine that the distinct style of tree people body horror thing they have going on is also a lot easier to copyright than "man on horse"
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Aug 22, 2016 19:59
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