Weekender XLBS: Ebay Army Perils & Games Workshop’s Money Machine
September 27, 2015 by dignity
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Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday. I’m at work so can’t watch until later 🙁
HAPPY SUNDAY x Oh the joys of grandchildren and early mornings 🙂
here the thing that you guy may want Sam to go look out for “Star wars model kit ” the one that made by the same company that made Gundams now all i know its they are of Good quality BUT becose of licence no japanese retailer can sell it out side of japan so if you like your star wars you need to get Sam to go hunt for it
I have already spotted them on sale.
Get yourself to a Dragon Gate show whilst you’re over there, @dracs
http://www.iheartdg.com/category/schedule/
How often have you been evacuated due to Kaiju attacks?
@warzan, regarding the seller on ebay, zero tolerance. i would say he/she knew they were being dishonest and hoped they would get away with it. You have given them the benefit of the doubt and tried to rectify the situation to no reasonable conclusion. Get your money back via eBay complaints.
Good show guys
Ps. Leave rating/feedback
I had a similar issue with recast counterfit terrain… to mean, who owned the original companies product, I knew right away… the seller “apparently” didn’t know.. said they picked up a “box” of the stuff at a game show years ago and were just selling off stuff that had been gathering dust… but they had multiple auctions up that all were probably counterfit… I told them if they didn’t change the description of their product to explain where they had obtained it and provide links to the original items, that I’d pursue action through ebay.. I still don’t know if they were being cheats and liars or if they were just naive… but it bothered me more that other people might also be tricked more so that this single person was possibly trying to sell counterfit products… that said, they were actually responsive to my emails and didn’t just refuse to communicate, which was at least one good thing.
Happy Sunday!!
Happy Sunday minus the Eng vs Wales pain!
The GW stuff isn’t really news. Except for that 20% number. We’ve known that they believe more in the collector’s market for years now.
And I don’t think their business model is to get young kids hooked on plastic crack. Other insider info tells us their target demographic is middle-aged nerds with lots of disposable income. Granted, it might be efficient to hook them young and let them grow into becoming big spenders, but I’m not sure GW execs are able to think that long-term.
They do target young males and see them as the core of their customer base. The reason they believe they are recession proof is because they think parents will always buy their kids what they want no matter how tough things are financially. Forge World is GW for adults, and that brand is targeted at the middle-aged nerd with lots of disposable income.
Also, the reason they put no effort into customer retention is they believe that the young male demographic will move on after 1-3 years no matter what they do.
I wonder if the 20% number is the percent of active players and they are not counting the vast number of people who don’t play much or at all any more but keep up with the new releases for their favorite armies. How many of the 80% of non gamers got into the hobby by gaming? If GW lets the gaming aspect of their business wither where will the 80% of non gaming customers come from in 5 or 10 years? Do they really think they can keep sales up long term with so little focus on gaming?
I think you are exactly right. I got into 40k as a kid with the intention of collecting an army to play with in a fictional universe that I adored as much as Star Wars. As I’ve grown-up (well, I got older anyway) I became more interested in the painting and collecting aspects of the hobby.
I don’t think the younger market loves the GW IP like I loved 40k in the 80’s.
I wonder if that 20% isn’t “people who play” but “percentage of models they play with”.. I started thinking about it.. and at any one time, I usually have 4-5x as much for a game as I use.. and I usually am playing 1 game regularly and have 4-5 games sitting on my shelf gathering dust… so.. as much as “20% are actual gamers” might not be true.. 20% of our sales go to active armies or 20% of your army actually sees the battlefield… how many times do you hear about people who have 3 or 4 armies of 2000 or 3000 or 4000 pts.. and they are only playing 1 army in 1500 pt games?
I wondered this as well. At one point in the 90s I had at least 2000pts for every WFB and 40K army, many more points in some cases. Some of those armies never even made it out of the blister packs. At the time I was told that this was a big part of GW’s business plan, that they knew that much of what they sold would never get used and they relied on impulse buys to drive sales. It seems from the article that GW class their consumers as ‘gamers’, ‘hobbyists’, and ‘collectors’. If the gamers game with the minis and the hobbyists assemble and paint the minis then what does that leave for the collectors? Buying them and doing nothing with them. Which exactly describes all of the abandoned or never-started armies that the gamers and hobbyists buy.
I have an idea. Maybe you guys could do a video guide or article about taking taking photos of miniatures. I would be very using, especially if it done for budget and pro levels.
Happy Sunday Folks, wonderful show loved it. The place looks awesome great job .
DONT MENTION TAYTO GUYS!
My stock that I picked up in the summer has run out.
Happy Sunday. I’m now thinking of a post to send to Sam
Hi Folks, Happy Sunday.
Were is the link to lets play beasts of war, as i cannot see it in the show notes.
Happy sunday!
Great show guys, good to have two packed episodes this weekend and a real nice mix of subjects which I always enjoy. As was said during this episode, that lovely custom army has me now looking to pick up models and do a bit of painting today.
@warzan a weekly couple of minutes of a lovely painted and or converted force may help community members to pick up that paintbrush or model they had put down and put in an extra hour or two. It certainly has for me.
Disappointed by reading that article on Games Workshop. I keep hoping that new blood will see the relationship with the customer as something important, not to exploit. They just come across as really mercenary – which we kind of knew anyway.
Games Workshop used to be a vibrant, exciting place. Many of the store staff still have that, but the company just doesn’t seem interested.
Very interesting point about addiction to collecting and the morality of business. For me its always been the hobby rather then just a games system. I’ve had so many life affirming experiences occur around the games table.
I do think the GW percentage is a random generated percentage as Age of Sigmar has made the game very accessible for new players even if its upset the player community. AoS is still something I’m not on board with but I do like the new fluff etc does add interest so against the its too fast argument I do understand that they want to give the new age the kind of depth we were used to in the old world without 20 yrs of development. Yes a risky strategy but ultimately it will be driven by results, most if not all plc are driven by the accountants.
Shiny Warmachine! If i could paint and convert like that I’d be a happy man… see example of shiny syndrome.
Rant over once again great video loving the content as always.
I agree with ogreblood. Zero tolerance. He will just rip off someone else.
The studio is looking great.
Looking forward to seeing the conversion vids with Mr. Mennes. The models you showed were very impressive.
Have a good week guys.
Warren. Following on from Ash Barkers experience with filming battle reports, make your table surface slightly higher than normal. Makes filming easier for all sorts of reasons.
@warzan Warren ddi you file a not as described complaint on eBay? If you paid with paypal which I assume you did, they will refund you pretty quickly. I was stung recently with some fake Death Korps of Kreig models and got a refund within about 10 days. They looked kosher on the photos but I knew as soon as I got them that they were wrong.
@warzan also file a complaint on paypal as well, if you file on both it gives a bigger flag.
Talking bout fake miniatures or recast, check GW LOTR. Some sellers have an insane amount of rare or OOP miniatures for sale each week. Some are very good replicas but they arent originals for sure
Seems straightforward to me, open up a complaint with ebay where you will get your money back, but before that, inform the manufacturer of originals and let them decide on whether to investigate or not. they may want the models as proof and reimburse you themselves.
Obtaining financial benefit from selling knowingly counterfeit goods is a criminal offence in UK. Zero tolerance. Report it to ebay and get a full refund. Although you’ve flagged an important issue and it takes little effort to message someone and ask ‘Can you confirm this army contains no counterfeit or unofficial proxy models?’
Counterfeit or unofficial proxies are 2 very different things.
The first need to be stamped out, with extreme prejudice – and the other is just a pain if you plan on playing in tournaments that do not allow it
So the 20 percent thing is total BS, I imagaine that they came to that conclusion by factoring sales and the amount of people who they see playing in store. without recognizing that most of us play in our own homes or at FLGS that actually support organized play. That said however, if they want to just be a model company then they should but in the process hand the tabletop game rules over to someone like fantasy flight, who have shown they can write balanced rules and actually listen to their players.
Yeah – the claim from GW doesn’t ring true at all. When a new set of models come out, they are almost all driven by changes to rule & codices. Remember 3 year ago when it was all fliers, and last year when it’s all super-heavy walkers?
GW seem to use the rules to change to drive sales.
Ironically, if GW were to go down the “miniatures company”, I’d really like to see them diversify from just Warhammer – you know do work on World War 2, and fantasy series. A bit like the old shop (remember you could buy Judge Dredd minis – and didn’t they do Doctor Who as well -> seem to remember owning a Dalek and Cybermen army). But then I don’t see that happening, GW seem all about a unique IP, and that IP is driven by the wargame and universe.
The usual justification for counterfeit models is that the company that produces the game is charging unfairly high prices. While I am sympathetic to people not wanting or not being able to spend such high sums on toys I don’t think that justifies counterfeits. The same is true for any creative endeavors, music, movies, games, software, etc. You do not have the right to the fruits of someone else’s labor and making copies of their work is theft pure and simple.
I do support the use of proxies though. There is nothing wrong with buying alternate models to play your favorite game. You can’t use them in official tournaments but its fine for friendly games. You want to use a bag of plastic army men to play bolt action, go for it. You want to use Mantic minis to play warhammer or 40k, go for it. Of course if you are selling miniatures online you should make sure buyers know that there are proxies as to hide that information is basically committing fraud.
@warzan “Chunks of bubbles and stuff missing” Sounds like official FineCast to me. Are you CERTAIN they are fake?
Happy Sunday all,
My main game is The Hobbit strategy game by GW.
My thoughts on the report on GW the report seems a little odd. If they were to ever drop the rules and only become a collector range I would probably move on I like to play my games for me this is an ever growing important part of my hobby time and social life.
Have I ever played in a GW store NO do I have a local GW store NO. I’m not spending the one free day a week I get to travel to nearest store to play a single game but what I am prepared to do is to travel further and maybe stay a night or two for a bunch of fun games and a night out with some fellow hobbyist.
If my local GW did it so I get could say 2 or 3 games then I would travel to play there or at Warhammer world but this is something they no longer seam to do for the Hobbit/ Lord of the rings game 🙁
These are my thoughts.
Hopefully GW will let the Hobbit drift out to the community as Bloodbowl and other have done before
The problem with that is that GW aren’t the licence owners, just the game creators. It’s the Tolkein folk who would have the final say.
Great show again guys thanks.
The ebay thing: Report it. If not for yourself, for the next person who may not understand what they have bought for their kids and find themselves in some debacle not of their making when the kid turns up at a GW store with them.
New studios look great, especially the gaming on, I still think it should be called Warren’s Dark Hole though.
Not sure where the 20% comes from, they claim to do no market research. I highly doubt its that low, when I still paid attention, new codices used to fly off the shelves at my local as fast as new models. I suspect that like me, many buy to play, but end up playing very little due to time and other factors. That is not the same thing at all.
That legion army is utterly amazing. Truly works of art there, well done Tomas!
Happy Sunday!
I would never thought of buying my first miniatures if there was no game to play it. And this first miniatures started all the other aspects of our hobby. And it was Warhammer. Strange enough they seem to abandon this aspect more and more. I believe for manny of us there is no reason to buy a miniature we could not field on any kind of gaming table. The collectors and miniature painters I had the pleasure to meet on open painters competitions – other than GW’s Games Day – tend to buy their miniatures from many other companies.
A huge thumbs up for your legion force Tomas, I’m totally stunned!
The German pinup mini made me think that you could do an RPG/skirmish game based on the Allo Allo world/cast. I’m sure Heir Flick would enjoy having her as an assistant….. It would be dreadful, but possibly just hilarious enough to be enjoyable!? Maybe?
Other than that I’m with Warren, those minis are ok if you just want nicely sculpted and painted shelf fillers.
Warlord have done Dad’s Army, maybe we will see ‘Allo ‘Allo next? I doubt it but it would be funny if they did
On the ebay bit depending on the responses you get you may have to go through ebays route to get your money back. A shame if/when it happens but it may be your only route.
Regarding the eBay thing, handle it through the official channels on eBay, but notify the manufacturer too. Give them the opportunity to take legal action if they want to (they probably won’t).
You definitely did the right thing by not talking specifically about the eBay seller or the manufacturer om here. You always do a good job of not using bow to air personal grievances, and rise above that level, which would cheapen what you produce. The same can’t always be said of other content providers.
With regards to the 20% line, it’s patently nonsense. Both in the real world, and online, we all speak to hundreds of GW customers, and the vast majority of them are gamers. It’s rare to find people who just think of themselves as collectors. If they really made up 80% of GWs customer Base, they’d also make up a significant proportion of the membership of the online community, and they just don’t.
Certainly a lot of the people who think of themselves as gamers might not actually get to play very much (like me), but still the reason why most of us are buying their products is to use them in games, even if these are hypothetical games we hardly ever get round to playing.
So abandoning their investment in creating games for their miniatures to be used in would be very stupid.
Do you still have the Nid painting video? I cant seem to find it.
Opinion of counterfeit minis: If it’s for your own personal use then I see no problem. But I wouldn’t buy counterfeit, especially if it was sold as legit.
There are the Chinese recasters who sell FW knock-offs so like a quarter of the price, I heard the quality was hit or miss but also you don’t know what kind of dodgy resin they’re casting with. I’d honestly rather save for a mini than risk wasting money tbh.
All I know is once GW dumps 40k I’ll never need to buy another product from them. I think that 20% is a bs number.
AoS was a step in their new “we’re not a games company” direction, take a look at the complexity and detail of AoS compared to 40k. 40k is a proper game and I don’t think GW wants to commit to maintaining that.
Great show this week guys. Really enjoyed the walkabout around the studio. It’s cool to see behind the scenes and get an insight into just how much planning and prep goes into each studio you build.
And I’ll echo the advice given here in regards to the ebay issue. Official complaint all the way. Ignoring the moral issue for a second, you didn’t get what you paid for and that’s the bottom line. Get your refund and forget about it. Ebay can pursue things further if they want.
And as for the issue of counterfeits themselves, I’m massively against them. As any of my friends who’ve had to listen to me rant about illegal downloading will know, I believe very strongly in a person or company being paid for the goods or services they provide. My two greatest passions in life are wargaming and extreme metal. Both cater to niche markets where (barring one or two notable big names) no-one involved is going to get rich. For the most part running an independent modelling/wargaming company or record label is a labour of love and relies on the support of small die-hard communities to survive.
I know counterfeiting models isn’t nearly as big a problem as illegal downloading but I’d hate for it to gain any traction or reach the same level of acceptance. Nonsense like this eats into already small profit margins.
@warzan
The only thing I’d say to watch out for is the time limits on complaints both with ebay and Paypal. With ebay you have to contact the seller within 30 days of the (estimated) delivery date. (There’s a system for them to refund within 60 days of payment). And if you’re going through Paypal then it’s within 45 days of the payment date. So that one starts ticking as soon as you order.
I know you want to give this person the benefit of the doubt but be careful you don’t let it drag on too long. If I were in your shoes I’d send them a final message letting them know that you want a refund and if they’re not going to comply immediately then you’ll be opening an official dispute and claim. Ebay do follow up on counterfeit goods (I had a problem with a dodgy version of Windows 7) so whoever this character is, they’ll want to avoid that.
I’ll echo the ebay advice too open a dispute and go through the process and be patient. Ebay might ask the seller to provide evidence and give them a couple of weeks to respond.
If you get Mantic in don’t forget to ask about Kings of War! What new races are coming how will they get released etc…
I think GW are losing a lot of customers like me who gamed and spent about £100 a year on a book or two and a few bit’s and pieces to add to existing armies. I know it’s not a lot of money to GW but it will have added up.
About the Games Workshop issue. I fell out of GW models after 7th edition fantasy (I did not like 8th edition). I had not bought anything for 8th edition and I had not bought ‘much’ for 40k (I think I bough the new Eldar war walkers). I found out about Kings of War and have spent $750- $1,000 so far (not all in Mantic). I bought 2x Dwarf mega-armies, the rulebook (both PDF and hardback), I bought a bandsaw and router (with table) so I can do multi-basing. I spent about $100 on trees, static grass, paints, rocks, and other ‘extras’. I spent all this in the last couple of months because there is a game that can be played. My Vampires and Slaven had to be dusted off. I like to play the games. I buy to play.
The warmachine army is awesome, it’s very refreshing to see someone convert those miniatures. I also prefer johns conversion, floaty stuff is ALWAYS better.
Happy sunday!
Great show lads.
With the re-cast problems, obviously go to e-bay first, but as you know the people who make the originals also tell them and let them decide if they want to take it further.
@warzan I sure hope I got you wrong with your thoughts on the collecting/painting aspect of our hobby….and you got only cought up in a spontanius rant. But if not I think that you should reflect a bit more on the painting/collecting side of the hobby before warning of the dangers of addiction and being an anti-social solitaire aspect without a game behind it. You sadly think in a stereotype hoped to be forgotten a long time ago. That of a pittyfull young nerd in its basement with that one obsation that needs to get out more….yadda…yadda…yadda. Back in the Dark-Ages are we? Collecting/painting has as much of a social component…without a game behind..as you want it to have. And to make this not too long: Sessions together are as commen among collectors/painters as are gaming sessions among Gamers. With friends…or new people…to learn from each other…to show each other the art they have created…up to endless Blogs on the net…and finally the big competitions. Plenty of different shades for everyone…again without a game played. Oh..and by the way…the GW stores might not have that much personal These days…but they are real social places for painters/collectors,arn´t they?
out of curiosity
What do collectors who aren’t painters do at these sessions?
And yes I think you have misunderstood me (a little bit anyway), but you are correct the social side doesn’t have to be gaming.
I don’t think there is any real difference of those collect GW stuff and those who build military kits then enter them into local competitions.
The Ulster Wargames Society started out life as a modelling club if memory serves me correctly when it was called The Ulster Military Modelling Society
Well…actually I have never met a collector who is not a painter…have you? If there are…well…I have no idea really what the hobby part of that is…maybe there is someone in the comunity who can pitch in and discribe it for me/us? Could you elaborate a bit on the misunderstanding part so that I actually can understand your point?
That is more or less why I go into store at GW to not so much play I think in the past six months of me getting back into this, I have had one full game of 40k, maybe a dozen of kill team. Usually we sit around the table talking shit and painting, just whatever is the topic of conversation, mostly it is about X is cool/stupid regarding the hobby, or paint X is awesome/frustrating but, occasionally it will go into real life stuff.
Some guys who are ‘collectors’ I guess? (I haven’t seen what they do) will sit around and join the conversation for awhile and then head off. Anyway that is the social side of that.
It’s really interesting that you should make that point about GW stores at the end. I recently volunteered to paint my local store’s demo game stormcasts in order to help out with the manager’s stress levels a bit. This necessitated sitting at the table in the store all day for a few Saturdays and what I experienced surprised me. There was a revolving cast of other hobbyists who would come in, sometimes bringing their own models to work on, sometimes buy new ones in the shop and sitting making and painting them right then and there. I got to know a few of them well enough to think of them as friends now. I had never really experienced the social element of that aspect of the hobby before, being previously one of warrens solitary basement dwelling painters!
Gotta say these shows are always a highlight of my weekend and this weekend’s episodes were great, I love the topic variety. Keep up the good work fellas.
If you report the item to ebay as counterfeit they will look into it as they wont allow you to ship it back but will refund you as there is issues with shipping counterfeit goods even if its just returning someones junk (Ive been through it before buying an item the same)
Happy sunday! Great show guys!
Rateing this show we would have to give it without doubt a single freezing cold coffee of a show.
Excellent content in both, but the XLBS disscussion was well exceptional, well balanced and scalpel precise cuts.
Fantastic.
I like to scratch build a lot and scenery especially. Doing some dwarf stuff so my mate might have his gigantuan Dwarf army a place to be displayed.
If it is at all possible please continue to try and maintain that air of thought and depth, No I am not p up your backs. So glad we saved it till this evening to take our time to watch. Been in York mid morning to mid afternoon fantastic day and what a way to round it out, thankyou.
The one thing I would ask because there are so many makes and types what cameras are you using/need what is the price obviously very expensive, “but I have a cunning plan invloving a turnip and ………….the coach ……. highwayman ……… escapes!
Yours Baldrick!!!!
Getting into “miniatures gaming” and GW
GW got me into wargaming, or rather technically the local “geek-store” did. The first, in my opinion and lets keep this as diplomatic as we can, uncommen choice GW did was trying to out-run local retailers with their own stores. This took down parts of the gaming cultures in at least one city I know of, the “ekosystem” was taken out, so to speak. THere are many ways into wargaming – boardgames, RPGs, card games, different wargames, they all create our gamer cultures, you just have to look at most convents, people like to play all sorts of games, a few just stick to a few or just one. The “local store” gets this and by the laws of economics adjusts itself to its customer. If GW doesnt understand this, well that takes us to where they are now, removing specialist games, discarding WHFB and so on.
Just a few weeks ago I was speak to a few of my pupils about boardgames, me and the guys playing a new board game and one the kids asked: How did you all these friends that like this kind of games. (I just might be using a few boardgames during history, social science and communication classe 😉 ) And I told them through gameing clubs, which are often connected to our local stores. I bring this up to reinforce Warzans claim that games are a way of evolving your social life and I as I see it in school t teaches basic communication skills that you dont get through the computer (not calling it bad at all, but you often loose most of the body language and other fysical communication.)
In a gaming group you need to get new blood, that is young ones as some of us get caught up in all hand of “grown-up-bussiness”, such as families, moving away and so on. We usually get our recruits through Airsoft (kinda paintball) but introducing a 15-20 year old guy/gall into wargames can be a bit tricky. I therefore analysed our lastest additions with this in mind. We began playing Dust (Oh pls Dust studios sort this shit out, we love your game but man…) THe game is resonably simple but requires much thinking process to be as tactical as can be, just like chess. But the basics remind of most wargames – move, fire roll to hit, roll to damage. Dust didnt quite hook them, so just as you got started with the Bolt Action show, so did we, and did get more into this through the hobby aspect of building their armies but about at the same time we started to watch a few episodes of “the empror got a text-to-speach divice” show on youtube. It about the 40k universe empror humoristically speaking about the 40k universe. Some of the guys still play 40k, I cut my GW bonds since they cut of 40k IG-DWV and specialist games, but we all enjoy the lore. watching this during painting seesions, we didnt think the younglings would get any of it but they got hooked. They heard our passsion fore the lore and armies and a few weeks later they came with their own 40k armies and painted them faster than I´ve ever seen any army become painted. And well, this is what Im getting to, that you were touching. A good or even great game does notoften fair an even match against a not so good game when it lacks of an awesome lore. DZC, INfinity, Firestorm, Dust, FoW, BA all have great game mechanisms and a good lore but they dont have that lore atraction that 40k manages to create. You´ll have to execuse me but, Dum* A*s GW… They had it “all”.
I´ll keep pushing all non GW back home buts its a hard battle xD
Great show you guys!
Hi. My name is Dawn and it’s been less than 24 hours since my last Magic purchase. Lol Yes, I know I have a problem. 😉
I finally had to just give my whole collection away to a friend in another country, boxes, binders, and all. Didn’t keep a single card because all it takes is one card and then you might as well get one more booster… It was hard but I managed to stay on the wagon for many years, till WotC snuck a pair of duel decks into a goody bag at comic con a couple years back and now I go to the local comic shop and stare longingly at all the Magic Cards in their little booster packs and fancy new deck boxes. I remember the excitement of opening packs to see what you got. I remember filling in card binders and tracking down missing cards to fill the sets. Curse you WotC!!!!
I find the article on GW completely baffling. If you had a CEO genuinely trying to live up to the image of a profit-mad corporation that didn’t give a toss about it’s customers then it fits. But I find it very hard to believe that.
At the end of the day GW isn’t a company that makes some faceless component or utility product. Where if they start using cheaper parts or out-sourcing to sweatshops you can just change the brand you buy. They’re in charge of several universes that have meant a great deal to people for years. In some cases probably a couple of decades. It’s not just the financial investment that’s gone into it, but the countless hours that gamers have put into crafting their armies and then playing through battles or campaign to create their own small bit of personal lore.
I have to ask; can a company that has helped build the framework for all that then appoint a board and CEO that don’t give a damn?! Don’t get me wrong, I know that in times of recession companies have to make hard decisions. GW make a luxury product for a niche market, not an easy sell when belts are being tightened. Cutbacks and a change of direction were to be expected.
But completely abandoning their moral compass? I’m still on the fence over that one. And I can’t take these latest numbers seriously. Only 20% of the customer base are gamers? I genuinely can’t think of any way they could reach that figure. Nor has it been agreed with on any of the sites I’ve seen discussing it. GW games and rules get more than their fair share of hate online but I’ve yet to come across a thread were four fifths of the comments are from guys that have stopped playing 40k or AoS and simply collect the minis. 20% of their customers playing in-store or at tournaments is a far more believable number.
Still though, in terms of them cutting back on actual game support, writing and playtesting the new rules for AoS must have cost a tiny fraction of what was invested in previous fantasy games. The simplification benefits GW as much as it does new gamers.
I’m not convinced about the 20% figure either, though I can believe that GW believe it. That said, if there are a lot of people out there buying the minis and not gaming with them (and having no intention of ever gaming with them), I’m not sure that those people would be well represented amongst the online chatter,
I’ve been a BoW watcher–as well as a Backstager–for quite some time and almost universally have enjoyed your content, but your discussion of GW’s “moral obligation” to its customers followed by complaining about the details of its models was entirely ridiculous. You argued that other companies “support their fans” with tournaments and the like when everybody knows that is merely a mechanism to sell more of their product. Furthermore, many of GW’s new releases included additional scenarios for GAME PLAY, not just individual models. Since I haven’t seen much of any AoS games at BoW, I’m guessing that you’re trotting out the “simplistic ruleset” line without having really delved into the system, the scenarios and the warscrolls which add a great deal of complexity and balance into the game. Also, I don’t hear BoW ranting about Kingdom Death or other boutique model makers–such as the WWII-themed one featured at the beginning of today’s episode–for not meeting their “moral obligation” to those supposed poor, impressionable kids and home-dwelling nerds who–if only for a game to play!–wouldn’t be stuck playing with their resin or plastic toys by themselves.
Warren: you’re certainly welcome to your opinions about gaming and politics in general but history has shown that companies out there don’t do things for charity, nor should they as you have said. It’s a wonder why GW offers any kind of transparency if all it would do is open them to further criticism and scorn. Surely you don’t believe that other gaming companies aren’t sitting back in their offices thinking of ways to cut profits so as to make their games more accessible for the poor, unwashed masses?
I actually made this point in the discussion if I remember correctly 🙂 (that it does come down to them a lot – mostly because they are biggest and have things like an AGM)
Remember we are talking about a topic that started at their AGM and then spread via an article.
As regards the details on the models that was about them gaining more and more delicate parts to the point that transportation is nearly impossible now without breakages.
If they were just models for the shelf that would perhaps be expected but they are sold as gaming pieces and as such my own preference would be for them to be more transportable.
I’m not digging the company with this but pointing out an observation that in some way backs up the collectors not gamers direction of the product range 🙂
I know next to nothing about GW, 40K, or AoS, but I do work in the operations division of a sizable tech company, where we live and die by metrics analysis. Without even seeing the “metrics” quoted or the article in question, it’s clear that this 80/20 question has been deliberately sliced a certain way to justify a business / marketing decision that has already been made.
In other words, they made a decision and are now searching for / publishing metrics to support that decision, rather than gathering data and making a data-driven decision subsequently in an “intellectual vacuum”
Simply put, 80% “collectors and hobbyists” and 20% “gamers.” Okay . . . “collectors **and** hobbyists” sounds like a vague datapoint. Why are there two terms in there? How many “hobbyists” are also “gamers?” Can’t hobbyists be collectors and or gamers as well? Granted, “gamers” and “collectors” can be considered at least a LITTLE mutually exclusive, but a person describing him/herself as a “hobbyist” could fall into either bucket very easily (or both).
So does a company that wants to cater to collectors simply decide to take all the “hobbyists” (whatever that means) and dump them into the “collectors and hobbyists” bucket to help convince stockholders that they’re charting the correct marketing plan going forward?
Yup – my suspicion as well. I get the feeling that 20% of sales are books, 80% are models. Therefore using pointy haired boss logic, only 20% of people are actually playing the game … regardless of the fact that you need models to play.
As regards AOS I’m not sure you got my point there either 🙂
In a nutshell the game relies on its background for its flavour and fun which is fine my point is if it’s too dense to get into it becomes off putting for new players (hence the need for a digestible format like a TV show etc)
If you get a chance watch the parts again and you will see these are just observations not rants 🙂
And don’t get me started on company ‘moral obligations’ lol as yes I think all companies should have morals 🙂
But morals are fuzzy things and yes often hard to pin down. But the tone of the article we are discussing suggested that it’s a case of get em hooked young and just supply supply supply.
If you have t read the article it gives good context to what I’m talking about 🙂
You run a company which heavily depends on it’s customers, especially the Backstagers. You know (and it’s come across before in several XLBS) that is you aren’t serving the viewbase, then people will stop watching, cancel their subscription and walk away.
Several times you’ve gone “we’re really enjoy doing X … but is it really right for our membership – are they engaging with it?”. Most small-medium businesses engage in this way, because they’re terrified of losing the base and goodwill they have. [Consider your discussion about finding you have counterfit models, and how horrified you were – you had a relationship with the vendor, and a moral duty to set an example not to accept this]
What is tragic is that Games Workshop don’t seem to care. Their attitude comes across very much like they want to be the Apple of models, “we make the best models in the world, that everyone wants to build and use, and if you don’t agree, there’s the door”. It’s kind of repulsive.
Personally after GW axed fantasy after I have invested hundreds of dollars in models etc over the last year, I am switching over to Mantic. I will not support GW with anymore purchases ever!! They are a flawed company to the core and will more than likely be sold/purchased by someone else in the future who will turn it back to a company that will be more supportive of their customers and a friendlier environment with the entire gaming community. Cheers!!
Great show guys, the new studios layout looks good I would get Justin to make a frame for the top of the door of the battle room? curtain to stop it catching.
Never got models from EBay just a bit for the car with no problems.
I think the GW management have been corrupted by the wine of dreams.
Tomas’s figures are very good obviously a talented modeller.
@warzan can you put a donation page on the site so people can fund your camera dilemma?
Or maybe do a full-on Beaststarter?
@dignity is that a surveys corps symbol from AOT on your jumper?!…hats off to you sir!
it is 🙂 do love Attack on Titan
Hmm, I am reluctant to begin this post, because for the most part I love beasts of war, and the community here, and I feel there may be a backlash…
The TL;DR version (and it is long, but I feel I have to because will respond harshly, the whole rock and hard place thing) or the introduction if you will is this, I believe that Games-Workshop (GW) bashing has become standard in the forums across the site, which I could accept if it didn’t overflow to its customers. Purchase addiction is a real thing, and I can explain why. Community is important so long as it is the right community, and I am not sure the tabletop community when it comes to the aspect of gaming and ‘tournament’ play, is a good community.
So, I think this is the one aspect of beasts of war that I think is a problem, bashing games-workshop and often by proxy its customers is okay here and I don’t think that is okay. I think criticism is fair, GW stuff is over priced, as someone who has worked on the factory side of ABS plastic with injection molding manufacturing, the cost to profit ratio must be astronomical even considering their plates, though the pressure maintenance would… frustrating, creating the kind of exact pressure needed for that kind of fine detail, without mold errors. At any rate, I hope the reader can see I am a realist, but I just think that GW bashing has become the standard, which I could accept, except for how it overflows onto the consumers of the product, which is not at all cool.
With that aside, I would like to respond to the comments about the social side gaming, addiction, and the comments made in response to forum topic/article from the forum topic – ”Games Workshop AGM: A Relentless Profit Machine” – . So a couple of things here, psychologically speaking, no I do not think it is hyperbole to say it is an addiction, these people feel compelled to do these things, though even through their own reasoning and logical deduction they do not need or truly want these things, but must have them. There are many reasons people may do this, but the result is the same, they spend money they otherwise wouldn’t not out of sheer joy or the desire to complete a project, but because of a compulsion. However, I am not in agreement that these communities are always good. My best mate and I played 40k when we were kids and we loved it and it is something we reconnected over after years apart, and inquisitor the game is something we still talk about and we love it, but we did not meet through the game.
I have had a number of questionable experiences with table top gaming communities, their was a gaming club years ago I went to which is largely responsible for my long absence from here, due to some of the things that happened. My brother and I had bought the starters and additional miniatures to make the standard points cost of Warmachine/Hordes forces respectively, I painted them up, and I had a friend play a game with us and we tried a couple by ourselves. We wanted to get into the game and I think we had by our actions shown a fair interest, some ‘freebooters’ I believe they were called came around to the gaming club and I asked if we could try out our armies with some intro games saying we had played a few, but didn’t have a strong understanding of the game.
This is where everything went relatively wrong, I played my game, asking each turn if this was about the correct action, I managed one shooting attack and was hoping to charge next turn. He activated his warcasters special ability shot a whole lot of my units, and killed my warcaster (or horde version of) and ended the game. I was disappointed, but determined that I made the mistake of bringing my warcaster up. My brother has always been more level headed than me, and was fighting tooth and nail for victory and almost made it… The short version of his story is both of these players brought tier one tournament lists, and he was fighting a losing battle from the start.
This is when we stopped playing warmachine/hordes, these were meant to be the representatives of the game, say what you like about GW, but their intro games teach a basic understanding of the game and give a good feeling to a new player. I could go into more detail about, but I shant. Onto more recent times, GW store was giving out prizes for a 40k kill team tournament and it was actually pretty decent prize wise (I think top prize was a land raider and some assorted other sprues) . I like before painted up my miniatures for the competition, now I wanted to enter with something fun so I made actual inquisitor warband with character names and unique conversions and so on. For my brother I did up some a tau stealth team because apparently they were pretty competitive. I knew I was going to loose hard, but I also knew I could have brought something more competitive, much more so, but I didn’t want to be that guy, I would lose, but I would be the coolest loser there was.
The day comes and low and behold I lost badly. I expected this, I wasn’t worried about this my first game was great, and I had a good time, things became worse as the day progressed. I played increasingly belligerent people who whined about my army until the manager conceded to their demands, even though I was playing whatever a tier Z team is. I played people with models which weren’t clearly ‘what you see is what you get’ which made playing harder. However once again it is my brother who suffered the most, both he and I had thought he had a competitive team, apparently we were wrong. Once again it wasn’t so much the losses for him, but the conduct in which they played. The winner of the tournament, had quite literally, freshly glued, models unpainted from the most recent codex…
While anecdotal evidence at best, I remember @Warzans story about the man at a tournament yelling at a child about, I believe it was ‘you’re denying me my allotted time’ I believe that is how the story went. This I believe shows me that my and my brothers experience are not anomalies, but atypical. Now, before someone says that these guys can’t hack it, sure say that about me just fine, but my brother has played at Grand Prix and other large scale magic events and won money enough to cover his cost of accommodation and travel, not big exactly but, enough. We both regularly attend magic events, both casual (Friday night magic/prerelease) and much more competitive (GP. PTQ, Regionals, Nationals).
It is my belief that the ‘competitive’ table top scene, is at least in my experience is an excuse for anti-social behaviour wrapped up in the gies of competition. As I noted I am no stranger to competitive play, with magic the gathering, but I also made nationals with the world of warcraft card game, I play soccer and netball, and have played many other sports. It is my belief that of all of the gaming communities, and all of the competitive communities I have experienced, the tabletop gaming community is by far the worst. Thus I can understand GW wanting to distance themselves from their gaming side.
I feel like a lot of people say that it is all about the game and you need to keep the game alive and let people be social. Now, I am being overly dramatic here to try and make a point, and I hope that warning comes across, but to me, that sounds like ‘we need to keep this anti-virus resistant strain of ebola alive, if not for anything else, but for science!’. Very over the top yes, but I what I am trying to say is, is little Jimmy really better off gaming if his experiences are going to include grown men yelling at him, people whining until they can have the ‘judge’ change things in their favor, and people using the excuse of competition to act like wretched human beings? It sounds like I would have a moral obligation to avoid that.
I am all for painting communities, hobbyist communities, hell I think we have one of the best ones here on beasts of war, filled with people talking about how cool everyone else’s stuff looks, never bragging, never looking down on people, always positive… here on the internet of all places! Have you see the internet? Have you seen the youtube comment section? It is a cruel place out there, but here people are awesome, alway encouraging one another. Just as Bill and Ted said ‘Just being awesome to one another’. I love it. If I could get kid that was me into something like our community, but real people with other kids, I feel it would be a moral imperative to do so.
I think this is where GW pulls there 20% number, they see lots of guys like myself, they paint, and buy models, they make amazing pieces of terrain, they pull out all the stops when it comes to the hobby itself, but when it comes to the game there like, well I need X number of this unit, or I’ll just finish up this and then maybe I’ll have a game. I mean I do play the game, but if they said to be a gamer, ‘you need to play X number of games a month’, I would fail miserably to fit into that demographic!
I love games, I will always be a gamer, I play board games, video games, card games, role-playing games, footy games, and hoops games, I love games. But honestly, looking at what I described up there… would you want to be labelled as a table top gamer, if that is how people pictured you?
do not fear backlash here 🙂
Your arguments are thought out and well explained.
And your opinion is as valid as anyone else’s 🙂
And that’s why we make the shows and talk about what the community talks about 🙂
Ta man, it is huge post, but basically, I think everyone, cut that, I know scientifically everyone needs community we’re built that way, but if the community is toxic should you really keep it on life support? Is more or less the point.
Also, regarding magic, the patrons of that game the term card board crack is often slung around.
My experience of tabletop wargaming tournaments is the polar opposite of yours. I literally have had no bad experiences. I wouldn’t project that out to say that no-one has had bad experiences at tournaments, but the opposite is also true. I play, organise, and am around tournaments a lot, and very rarely do I come across people having seriously negative experiences.
I’ve played in two Warmachine tournaments as I’m a casual player of that game and don’t often play competitively. I lost more games than I won, everyone was very nice and friendly, and in one I came away with a prize for no other reason than the Pressganger had the mini spare from the prize pool and was making sure things were evenly spread around. When a different Pressganger taught me to play, he matched me up with another inexperienced player and talked me through the game, then spent time afterwards (eating into his own gaming time) giving me advice on where to go from there. The Warmachine tournament scene has took off in the last few years in my part of the world. It’s long since gone past WFB and may even have overtaken 40K (it seems to me like it has but there could be 40K tournaments I’m not seeing). It hasn’t done this by being a toxic community but by being a friendly and welcoming community.
” if they said to be a gamer, ‘you need to play X number of games a month’”
They haven’t, at least according to the article which reports that GW said 20% of their customers are gamers. Of the remainder, half will occasionally think about playing, the remainder will never even think about having a game. The 20% figure is meant to be the people who actually play, no matter how casually.
“I feel there may be a backlash”
I sincerely hope this post has come across in the way I intended and not as a backlash.
I don’t see it as backlash at all man, it is your experience which no matter what anyone says are always valid. I am unsurprised there are people who have had the opposite experience to me, I think it mainly the people have these sorts of experience very positive or negative who are more likely to speak up. It may be my area which I would be very unsurprised about also.
It may be that because my area is small (Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia), people are ‘allowed’ to behave poorly because there is such a small player base. But yeah man, I think your comments are completely fair. Just two people who are coming from completely different experiences.
Age of Sigmar, was just a way to sell models, thats why the game allows you to use whatever models you want. All those collectors that have lots of the special models you wouldnt normally use in a single armie suddenly you can have the 10 dragons, 5 giants and several other monsters all together in one force, its the ultimate game for collectors who want to play something now and again.
Interesting episode. Thanks guys.
Some comments;
GW… As a fellow Leftie ( though morals should not be politicised) spot on.
As an ex GW key timer, the co didn’t even value staff.
Pls show screen shots for longer when discussing those conversions!
I have only had a problem with buying my Vanguard singles once. The seller screwed up my order and only sent 1 of the 3 copies i bought. I asked for a refund on the goof they fixed it. No harm no foul. As far as how you should handle this situation. You bought the models for use in house and it’s your livelihood making content for Beasts of War. If he won’t take it back open up a claim and be done with it, and use that money to see if you can find another one of those well cared for armies.
I’m a collector, painter and gamer. I don’t play GW games, but I do play historical and a few non GW fantasy. Yet I do collect and paint GW models, now if GW are marketing people like me then I can see them going bust…cause I don’t buy GW en masse. I don’t build and paint GW armies, but individual pieces. When I stopped playing WHFB and 40K I stopped buying armies, the amount I’d spend with GW shrank dramatically. I still buy from them but it’s the Odd purchase when a particular model catches my eye. I’m assuming that a lot of painter/collectors don’t buy armies, I could be wrong but I would assume they purchase GW minis like I do.
The games I do play I build warbands and armies for them, if I decide to play 40k or Sigmar then I’ll buy an army. So what I’m trying to say is, that I don’t believe that the majority of GW customers are collectors, why buy an army just for it to sit there doing nothing. I suspect there are some collectors out there who do buy, build and paint armies that never get played with, but I suspect they are in the minority. I would also assume that if they got rid of the actual games then sales of miniatures would plummet.
GW pricing here in Australia, is the factor why I have not played WHFB or 40K in about 5+yrs. (not meaning the rant or GW bash). Quite a few people I know that game, pricing for Australian players is a massive factor as to what is played.
This Kiwi +1’s that sentiment. If you think GW is expensive in the UK …
I wonder with the 20% games vs 80% collectors bizarre metric they’ve come out with … I wonder if they’ve looked at their sales and gone “20% of sales comes from rulebooks/codices … and 80% on models therefore 80% of people only buy the models”.
Which even my schoolkid son could point out the railgun sized hole in the logic.
What’s frustrating for me is that at a time ripe for getting an actual quote from a GW representative in the know, the closest we can still get is mostly anecdotal.
Taken at face value, I find being part of the “20 percenters” insulting to my intelligence. One only has to look at the headlines on the GW app, or in White Dwarf, hell even the descriptions on the models themselves to know that the marketing is geared towards the gamer side. Even Skarbrand, “play him in both AoS and 40K games” it’s right in the brochure.
However, had the quote been something like “our customers only spend about 20% of the time, in the game.” … hell ya, that I could get behind, and I can see how it would steer GW’s overall strategy. I’m employed, 2 kids, wife, pets, other hobbies, etc., so I get roughly about an hour or two a day to “hobby” and about 3-4 hours every two weeks to game. Rough math puts that in the 25-30% range for gaming. IF GW’s strategy is to maximize the other 70% of my hobby time with nice sculpts, good fiction, tie-in licensing then I say they should go for it, but damn I really wish the condescending attitude their management seems to have about how I use their models would go away.
I loved the conversion work and it has got me routing through my bitz box looking at what I have that can go together. Wonder what an ogre, Thunderfire canon base and a immolator turret looks like.
That Tyranid army is a total bang up fantastic job! The blood effects really do look good on the large and small beasties. And Carcharadons, ha! I thought everyone but me forgot about them after the Badab War. 🙂
There’s been a lot of talk about Games Workshop and whether they’re right about their customer base. So I’m going to talk about something else – buying miniatures just for the joy of painting them.
Up until very recently, I was a bit like @warzan, didn’t see the point in buying a miniature if it wasn’t going to be used in a game in some way, whether that be an RPG or as part of an army/force for a wargame or skirmish game. And then I pre-ordered HALO and got the bust of the UNSC commander and what an absolute treat painting that was. It serves no purpose in the game but it was an absolute pleasure to paint and I’m now already looking at other miniatures in the same scale to paint just for the joy of painting them. Although pin-up miniatures aren’t normally my thing, I can well understand why Jon would enjoy painting those models.
@warzan
When it comes to eBay purchases, while the caveat “Buyer Beware” remains true, eBay has very strong purchaser protection policies.
It is not the responsibility of the buyer to make sure a product is well packed and protected from travel damage. It’s entirely on the seller. Do not feel guilty about not asking the seller to properly pack an army that subsequently arrives poorly packed and heavily damaged.
Also do not feel guilty about asking the seller for satisfaction if the product is not as described, especially if it includes re-casts and counterfeit. There is actually a clause in eBay policies for that too.
If you are not getting through to the seller, or coming to an understanding, then definitely get the eBay customer resolution service involved. Do not let a bad seller swindle you based on your concern for their well being/benefit of the doubt. If they truly wanted to resolve it, they would have communicated to you directly, and with options to resolve it. If they have cut off communication, that means they don’t care, so you should take the appropriate steps to protect yourself, as well as to help protect the community who might later be victimised by the same seller with a similar swindle.
I like ‘The Crucible’ as a name for the battle report room!
The studios have turned out nicely. And I really like the look of the central room with all the ongoing projects laid out.
@warzan The dark gap where you have the door to The Cave can be easily hidden with some clever camera direction.
option 1. Have someone standing in front of it when you need a wide shot of the table and/or people playing.
option 2. Zoom in or angle the soldier cam downwards towards the table so the gap is (mostly) out of view.
Ask Tomas if he can do a painting tutorial demonstrating how to do the paint scheme on his Hordes army. It looks absolutely amazing. And I really like how he managed to keep all the silhouettes the same.
@dracs Hello! How are you doing in Japan?
In the other news 🙂
A great discussion on the GW “ISSUES”. Nothing to add.
Good God, these conversions by Tomas are stunning. Not to mention the paint job.
I also would like to ask you if there was something wrong with Justin’s mic? He was barely audible beginning from the conversions part at 1h20.