Reply To: GW Once Again Taking a Giant Dump on Retailers

[jamescutts 6924xp 6]

1 box! Seriously!

That’s doing enough to say “available at 3rd party retailers” technically it is but, in reality, it isn’t.

I very much feel for all of you down under, you already get screw on pricing. I’d normally say fuck ’em and stop buying their overpriced junk, but I don’t think you lot have easy accessibility to alternatives, that equally don’t cost a fortune due to shipping.

While as many say, I don’t care about GW and I’ve moved on, as pointed there’s such a huge wealth of better games/products/rules out there, It does make me slightly concerned about the hobby, in general, a lot of these retailers are heavily impacted by the actions of one company. GW makes up a lot of some store’s sales and their practices are continuing to be harmful to them, from what I’ve heard Warlord is not doing an amazing job of it either. I’m also fed up with retailers spamming me with “you can pre-order this thing and we might be able to get it for you” emails every GW release.

As for the ongoing argument of supply/demand that comes up every time, GW gets questioned, falling back on the old textbook of supply and demand is a bit rigid in thinking as horus points out and a bit repetitive to see the same point over and over again. I don’t really want to get involved in that but what I would say is while saying a corporation/entity is not “evil” or “out to get your” etc is true, the does not mean individuals within it are not (just look at those that stockpiled PPE, the companies just wanted to make some money, fine that’s capitalism, but ethically its a bit on the bankrupt end of the scale and from some of the individuals involved) or that people may view a company in that way. I say this because perception is important, how people view a company can ultimately affect them in the long term, or suddenly with specific events.

The point about pricing families our is a very good one too, the increasing cost of our hobby (particularly GW but others are guilty) will be a long-term issue. The more expensive entry gets the less we will see younger generations getting involved, and eventually the customer base shrink or potentially disappear. I think this affects a lot of the issues we see with diversity, white males from medium to high-income families dominate the hobby sadly.

The easy solution is don’t buy into the marketing and hype and don’t buy their products, but that can be easier said than done.