A Positive View on Games Workshop

[Evil Dave]

From my experience Space Hulk was making them a huge profit, GW just didn\'t realize it.

Space Hulk was a \"Gateway Drug\". Everyone I knew played Space Hulk, then got into 40K.

Space Hulk eased you into the universe and got you interested, then hooked.

They\'ve probably lost millions from people walking in and seeing games of 40K and thinking that\'s way too complex.

 

[Jericho]

What army do you play? I\'ve seen pretty much every army done up to a fearsome level when certain people control the army lists

<edit>

As mentioned earlier, Space Hulk was a cool idea but it wouldn\'t work with the current range of models. If they liscensed out the game and got 3 piece snap together type models produced it might work... bit Termis are some of the more complicated models out in plastic right now. And they\'re huge.

Anyway the super cheap starter set is their gateway drug now

</edit>

 

[mattsterbenz]

Originally posted by 6ix
K, I don\'t post in forums often, but this got me interested enough to register. I\'ve always played GW games, back to when I simply didn\'t know there was anything else, I\'ve gone theough at least a half dozen different 40k armies, as well as having various stints of playing other games from them, primarily inquisitor.
-Games workshop is expensive, but hell, so is everything, how much did you spend on your last pointless pc upgrade?
-metal models are awkward, and less fun to convert, yeah they feel nicer, but they don\'t have the same level of detail, and they chip.
-In even a small city, without your own table, and a decent network of geek friends, there really isn\'t anywhere else that you can play games.
-I recently bought a 2000pt imperial guard army, one of the more expensive 40k forces, it is almost all plastic, and cost me under £150. i used some of my old parts, but to buy from scratch. it would still have cost me about £150. That\'s over 120 infantry, and 4 vehicles, and on minimum wage, it\'s 3 weekends, hardly a huge outlay.
-Find me somewhere that\'ll provide an equivilant number of warmachine or reaper minis, and provide me with a warm room, 4 boards, and plenty of opponants to play i\'ve never met before for the same cost, and i\'ll be very impressed.
-games workshop, despite pissing me off with killing the mail order service, still provide excellent back up for all their specialist games, with all the rulebooks free online, and new, useful articles each week.

Finally, yeah, GW is expensive, but it\'s still cheaper and more fun than an XBox 360, and how many of you have one of them in your house, i\'d bet more than one. Oh, and i first heard of Heresy miniatures through a games workshop magazine [Exterminatus].
-Rant over, thankyou.

Finally a good argument, and written so i can understand. I agree

 

[james sequeira]

first time poster as well

 

[StarFyre]

there are other options

I\'m one of the few who didnt collect minis due to WH. Friends and I started years ago due to seeing painting ral partha D&D minis with our high school teacher/D&D club DM. After that was hooked. Although back then we used to base coat everything and that was considered painted (it\'s why I state I\'ve only painted for like 2.5 years, seriously..I have other than just a basecoat ) . I only got into WH cause a friend inticed me with some nice models. I knew nothing of warhammer until I played my first match (after getting enough models painted for a 1200 point game) around january 2004. I won the entire army on ebay for a steal of a price (less than half price for the lizardmen army box, stegadon for 15 cdn after shipping, carnosaur was a gift to me). All i\'ve bought for my army are a few random models and a couple boxes I wanted upon release instead of waiting for an ebay steal.

I know ebay does hurt companies sales but the fact is, in the new global economy, all companies must adapt and deal with it.

I say to all the complainers, use ebay...

And a store can\'t ban you for not buying models from them. Hell, I could say my rich relatives bought me the army. So to the person who suggested not going to his story with an ebay army...yeah...well, I won\'t say what you can do hehe

As for the models, I dont like the cost increases, but I do love the plastic models. Right now i\'m trying to convert a metal model for my army..and OMG it\'s a pain.

Sanjay

 

[mattsterbenz]

Originally posted by james sequeira
first time poster as well

What significance does that have? Who cares?

 

[mattsterbenz]

Originally posted by StarFyre

And a store can\'t ban you for not buying models from them. Hell, I could say my rich relatives bought me the army. So to the person who suggested not going to his story with an ebay army...yeah...well, I won\'t say what you can do hehe


Sanjay

Wanna bet? GW stores probably cant, but IR\'s can do whatever we want.

 

[Onis Lair]

Actually hate to say it but even a GW store can do that. All stores have the right to refuse service for any reason. So yes some ass runnign a store can legally boot you out and ban you just because you have a pimple on your ass and they don\'t liek that fact.

 

[mattsterbenz]

What ticks me off about ebay armies is that some people who buy them come to my store, and never pay to keep the lights on. They dont care one bit, and if the store they play at and never support goes down, they will find a new victim. I despise of mooches. These vultures never buy something to pay for the terrain they are using, and to pay for the staff that run the joint and give painting demos.

 

[Onis Lair]

Dude really, if your store is having that much of a problem with ebay armies and peopel not buying then boot the person out and be done with it. I walk into Hobby Bench all the time and never buy stuff, granted they carry ass and if they did have somethign good it\'s so buried under crap you can\'t find it. I game at IOG monthly and often don\'t buy anything and darrin doesn\'t say a word. On the other hand i also have been known to drop a couple hundred now and again on stuff there. It\'s not because i do or don\'t want to support the local store it\'s just they have what i want at the time i\'m there. But i agree, i don\'t like people that mooch.

 

[Sand Rat]

Problem is MB how can you prove they didn\'t buy anything the last time they were in? Do you work the store all hours, and make every sale?

My LGS has 2 locations that were convienient to me at different times - the north store when I was at work, and the south store when I was home. By your argument, if I bought something in the North Store, I couldn\'t take it to the South Store and play it, if I take your argument to an albiet somewhat silly Extreme. Or can I not take stuff I bought when I lived in Dallas at my LGS there and use it to game in my LGS in Austin where I live now? And how many of the Ebay Army guys have you seen come into the store and after one or two visits they are buying locally because they can get it now?

You talk about wanting to support the hobby, but what it seems like you want is support of your store.

 

[CaptNarcissisto]

I think not letting someone play in your store because they bought their army on eBay is not an intelligent move if you want the business to actually make it. True, some may not buy anything, but it\'s just good business to let them play. They almost certainly will buy something, and possibly bring new people in that may buy something, or tell someone they play there, and those people may buy something, and so on. Unless they cause problems (at which point you can ban them), I would let them play, unless making money and having a business that survives it is not as important as making a point about eBay to some 15 year old. Let\'s face it; gaming stores are not the most profitable businesses in the world, they need all the help they can get. Driving off potential customers is not a good way to promote the store. Remember, one happy customer may tell one person about your store, but one unhappy customer will tell 10-20 people how bad a store is.

I buy most of my minis and supplies on eBay, but I still buy something at least half the time if I\'m in a gaming store, and I would guess this is true of many people.

And anyone that thinks GW is doing well as a company does not know what they are talking about. First of all, look at the graph earlier. Besides that their stock is down over 35% over the last 52 weeks, which is horrenously bad. They basically hit a peak in terms of the business in Jan. 2005, and have been plummeting ever since. I don\'t think they\'ll go out of business, but I do think they will probably end up scaling back. If things keep going the way they have been for 2-3 more years, they probably will end up closing up numerous retail stores, since this is where alot of overhead comes from. In my opinion, the best thing that could happen would be for the company to do badly for another couple of years, and then get back to basics of the gaming industry. At least it would be better for real gamers and painters, although maybe not for the hordes of kids who may like the dumbed down games, and average quality, but high priced minis and books.

 

[Sand Rat]

Well, when you consider that according to some industry insiders the Gaming industry as a whole has peaked the fall of GW could just be related to that.

Or like I said earlier - the sins of GW\'s business practices may have finally caught up to them.

Something that has been said before, but not really hit upon is that if you are just getting into the hobby GW has all the support in the world, but their long term support for old hands really sucks. Again, part of the business model that kills them - you aren\'t gonna make a lot of money if you expect 75% of your customers to buy only once, then bugger off to Buffalo -

 

[funnymouth]

Originally posted by Jericho
What army do you play?

daemonhunters, many flavors. im no tactical slouch either, i know the game well, and i am very capable of winning with many forces.

i think evil dave is sooooo right. GW needs a \"gateway drug\" to get people hooked, something different (NOT LOTR). a freh look at one of the old systems would be perfect.

 

[mattsterbenz]

we have never had to kick someone out because of not buying anything. I was just saying we could, and those are the kind of people i dont like. Everyone at my store realizes that the store needs to make money to give these people a place to play, and everyone is pretty good about it.

 

[mattsterbenz]

Originally posted by steelcult
Problem is MB how can you prove they didn\'t buy anything the last time they were in? Do you work the store all hours, and make every sale?

My LGS has 2 locations that were convienient to me at different times - the north store when I was at work, and the south store when I was home. By your argument, if I bought something in the North Store, I couldn\'t take it to the South Store and play it, if I take your argument to an albiet somewhat silly Extreme. Or can I not take stuff I bought when I lived in Dallas at my LGS there and use it to game in my LGS in Austin where I live now? And how many of the Ebay Army guys have you seen come into the store and after one or two visits they are buying locally because they can get it now?

You talk about wanting to support the hobby, but what it seems like you want is support of your store.

First of all, i never said if someone doesnt buy something on a first time visit they should get banned at the drop of a hat.

Basically, what i dont like is a smelly creepy guy coming in regularly once or twice a week (or more) bragging about the good deals on ebay and telling other people they should go there, and never spending anything for the months and months he was going there.

Im not going to start any GW-related threads anymore. It is obviously way to controvercial for most to discuss in an intelligent manner, everyone just babbles about back in their day. Consider this thread finished for my part. My original intent was to state that there is not much of a difference between now and 6-10 years ago except in quality of the models, and that changed to \"they suck cuz they dont make space hulk or squats anymore\". Most of you have nothing to say worth my time.

 

[sebrushworth]

I think this has for the most part been an intelligent and interesting discussion. The opinions have been sensible and so far it hasn\'t developed in to a flame war.

Mattsterbenz, I think you\'re being incredibly rude and disrespectful to all the people here who have take their time to answer you.

 

[Jericho]

Just tell the people they can\'t talk about what they buy/sell on eBay while they\'re in the store. When I worked at GW there were times when we had to tell certain shady regulars to continue their conversations in another venue, or drop the subjects altogether. Most people handle it well if you approach them politely enough and with a good explanation for why they can\'t keep doing what they\'re doing.

And as a side note, I kinda have to agree... there\'s been a steep decline in civility the last couple of posts.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by mattsterbenz

Im not going to start any GW-related threads anymore. It is obviously way to controvercial for most to discuss in an intelligent manner, everyone just babbles about back in their day.
I originally viewed this thread with an amused cycnicism, taking the point of view that as you had just won a Well Deserved Bronze in GDLA you were doing a bit of A$$ kissing.
However, with this comment I consider that you are being rude to quite a few members of the forums just because thier age and experience of Life, either with or without GW, is greater than your own.

Consider this thread finished for my part. My original intent was to state that there is not much of a difference between now and 6-10 years ago except in quality of the models, and that changed to \"they suck cuz they dont make space hulk or squats anymore\".

Most of you have nothing to say worth my time.
Another comment which I interpret as being rather rude towards members of the forums.

 

[Legacy Account]

Originally posted by mattsterbenz
What ticks me off about ebay armies is that some people who buy them come to my store, and never pay to keep the lights on. They dont care one bit, and if the store they play at and never support goes down, they will find a new victim. I despise of mooches. These vultures never buy something to pay for the terrain they are using, and to pay for the staff that run the joint and give painting demos.

No they don\'t give a damn about retailers. They enjoy their hobby and want to be able to afford it in the face of ridiculous price increases.

This post perfectly sums up why GW are going to starve to death. They have a sprawling retail chain that\'s sucking away profits at a rate of knots, and people can get their goods up to 25% cheaper online without even leaving the house. GW thought it\'d be a good idea to reduce the amount of minis in a blister a few years back. Great. More revenue! Until the price of petrol goes through the roof and they realise that their transport and packaging costs have risen stupidly....

Cretinous, ill thought out decisions have plagued them for years. They\'re not the only kid on the block any more. They\'re gonna get a spanking.