Reply To: Is GW's constant "limited release" marketing starting to bite back?

[limburger 21704xp 2]

GW’s games have always needed a ton of additional content.
40k had codexes throughout its entire lifecycle.
WFB had several supplements in its 2nd edition.
And White Dwarf was filled with extra rules and even new units since day 1.
It’s always has been part of this hobby.
And to be honest … GW has managed to limit it by doing the ‘chapter approved’ / ‘generals handbook’.
Reducing the bloat would be nice … but given that GW is minis first / rules second that’s never going to happen until they make selling rules their primary business.

As for these ‘limited edition’ starter sets. They’re only a problem if you want one and it sold out.
Yes, it sucks. However we’ve also seen that the minis eventually make it into retail on their own (like the Vanguard spacemarines). I’m sure the Banshees will be sold separately and the plastic sisters already have retail releases planned.

It’s important to keep in mind that we’re not dealing with a product that has no predictable audience and a predictable sales cycle.
As such it shares more common ground with fashion than electronics.
They can hype a product all they want, but that still doesn’t make us buy all the shiny because they say so.

I’m pretty sure GW (and every other industry) would love to produce exactly the amount of products people want, but that is part science and part black magic. They can’t rely on how many things there fans claim to ‘want’, because we don’t always buy the stuff we say we want (or we change our minds).BTW :
IF you think GW is bad … you should look at how Nintendo (and the rest of the video game industry) do things.
They manage to make digital products into ‘limited’ resources.At least GW has a (good) reason to not create infinite amounts of [insert army]

Nintendo – A Shit Distributor And Fuckheaded Toymaker (The Jimquisition) from JimSterling

(Warning : it is a bit full of F-words)