Another GW thing Drink everyone

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
[They could even go into franchise with Coffee houses like Costa which works so well in Waterstones

A counter with Space Marines popped into my mind.
Customer: What kind of Barristas are you guys?
SM: We are his Emperor\'s loyal Space Marines of the Java Bean Chapter.
Customer: Allrighty...I\'ll have a Vente Mochacino...
SM: Speak not the foul tounge of those that serve the Star. (lifts bolter)
Customer: er...I\'ll take a large coffee.

After thirty minutes of incantations and praises by the tech priest to the machine spirit of the coffee pot the coffee is delivered to the customer.
Customer: Augh, this cofee is horrible, I knew I should\'ve gone to Starbuck\'s.
SM: Heretic!!! (Blam)

The market strategy I would use would be to hire hot chicks and dress them as Dark Elf Witch Elves, and Sisters of Battle befuddling the average game geek with ample amounts of cleavage, making them unaware of the money they are spending.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Evil Dave
The market strategy I would use would be to hire hot chicks and dress them as Dark Elf Witch Elves, and Sisters of Battle befuddling the average game geek with ample amounts of cleavage, making them unaware of the money they are spending.

Ah but that would only encourage the Dads to go in and then the mothers would stop them and GW would collapse completley.

 

[MarkusTay]

Too little, too late. I read that as \"we can no longer bleed our LotRs line to death, so we have to return to bleeding our long time customers to death, which has worked so well for us in the past.\"

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
What would be better all round is if the stores were opened up in a more customer focused manner; Have multiple levels, one for sales, one for gaming and one as a Cafe where the long suffering parents could recover. They could even go into franchise with Coffee houses like Costa which works so well in Waterstones

Wow... I\'ve had this same exact idea for a store around here. I was thinking of calling it \'The Colliseum\', and making it round. The retail area would be on the main level, with a circular hole (ala observation rooms in surgery) looking down into the gaming area in the basement. It would have storage and a snackbar \'ala Starbucks\' on the second floor; I see way too many times gamers getting together and putting together an order for someone to make a \'deli run\' (food run). Everytime I see that I see a hundred bucks walking out the door of the store. Maybe if I ever get the money to build my dream store you can open up a franchise across the pond.

 

[wiccanpony]

Originally posted by Evil Dave

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
[They could even go into franchise with Coffee houses like Costa which works so well in Waterstones

A counter with Space Marines popped into my mind.
Customer: What kind of Barristas are you guys?
SM: We are his Emperor\'s loyal Space Marines of the Java Bean Chapter.
Customer: Allrighty...I\'ll have a Vente Mochacino...
SM: Speak not the foul tounge of those that serve the Star. (lifts bolter)
Customer: er...I\'ll take a large coffee.

After thirty minutes of incantations and praises by the tech priest to the machine spirit of the coffee pot the coffee is delivered to the customer.
Customer: Augh, this cofee is horrible, I knew I should\'ve gone to Starbuck\'s.
SM: Heretic!!! (Blam)

The market strategy I would use would be to hire hot chicks and dress them as Dark Elf Witch Elves, and Sisters of Battle befuddling the average game geek with ample amounts of cleavage, making them unaware of the money they are spending.

ample amounts of cleavage..works for \"Hooters\", and we all know Hooters is such a family restaurant

 

[noneedforaname]

Don\'t say bad things about hooteres i have had some great parties with those girls.

They are just the right amount of dumb

 

[Rodnik]

Most business success can be explained in two sentences:

Maintain your current customers.
Obtain new customers.

They\'ve failed in both cases. The trick to overcoming it is quick adaptation.

I do buy figures for the Golden Demon competition, but I\'ve yet to play simply because what the past has shown.

Constant, unjustified, price increases. These would be much easier to swallow if it was industry-wide....

Game longevity. If I spend 300-500 bucks to play (figures, rules, codex, etc), then I expect to play for a bit before being forced to replace everything. That\'s not the case.

I think the solution is pretty simple---settle on rules that\'ll be good for the long-term.

Release upgrades to the rules---- in errata-style manuals (even if they are purchases publications)--not a complete rule overhaul.

Create new races/factions/armies that can be tabled against the older armies.

If they were to do these things (or something remotely similar), I\'d spend money to learn to play.

Do you guys think my offer of \"one net new customer/player\" will work to get \'em to change??

I can hope I guess---as I *really* want to play---just not enough, considering the current circumstances.

 

[skeeve]

The expansion of the retail section was done badly.
What would be better all round is if the stores were opened up in a more customer focused manner; Have multiple levels, one for sales, one for gaming and one as a Cafe where the long suffering parents could recover. They could even go into franchise with Coffee houses like Costa which works so well in Waterstones

OOO. Funny you should mention this... An average 40K game last 2.5-3 hours, average fantasy game could last even longer... I don\'t know how it is organized in UK, guys, or even in other parts of US, but in my local area (NY city) GW hobby centers don\'t even have public restrooms (at least two of them) . Now, they used to have their stores in malls, that provide such facilities centrally , but of late they are pulling out of malls because malls require them to work certain hours that they don\'t want.

Conversely, independent stores try to separate sales area from gaming area. Granted, space is an issue in NYC, yet somehow independents can solve this problem, often rather creatively

 

[Swordwind]

Warmachine for everyone! :drunk:

 

[uberdark]

actually for the first time gw can say that they can raise prices due to the cost of metal. i noticed on privateer that they were raising their prices as well because of the cost of metal. .....but then again doesnt games workshop want to switch to plastic? It honestly stinks to see such a great idea start to fall apart. But at the same time an American company by the name of Enron did fine for years by lying to the public. i hope Games Workshop doesnt follow in their steps because i truly love these miniatures that have taken over my life in the past year.:beer:

 

[Dedwrekka]

Originally posted by finn17
Quite a few of us around here could have told them that back in 2001 however. That\'s when they started to lose contact with their roots. The LOTR thing was a cynical money-making exercise that simply hastened their demise.
I am afraid it\'s likely to be too late for them however, unless they have a \'root and branch\' shake-up....which they wont.

It is sad to see that profits on a turnover of 54.8 million were a mere £127,000 That\'s probably less that a Premier League football player pays in tax.

It\'s been there for all to see however...Spacemunkie and I have been posting graphs of their financial situation for the last three years and neither of us are accountants...

I\'m gonna have a beer.....:innocent:

Bad job on their part, yes.

Are they going away anytime soon? No.

To say that they\'ve failed to either retain old customers or gain new customers is quite ignorant. Remember, they still have several major projects underway that are netting them good amount of money. Namely Mark of Chaos, Dawn of War, and the upcomming Warhammer Online. Them going into computer gaming alone has shown an incredible amount of preplanning and foresight. Warhammer Online alone has been six years in the making, starting with their MUD game and then changing hands through several companies in their search to make it into a full fledged MMORPG. There has also been rumor of a Blood Bowl videogame comming out at some point.*

Warhammer online itself is proving to be a great powerhouse in the MMORPG world. Many of the people playing the current powerhouse, World of Warcraft, have expressed discontent with the game and it\'s current player vs player content. Even using it as a common threat when making a rant to claim that they\'ll leave and go to Warhammer Online if something doesn\'t change.

They made a mistake with LoTR, and it wasn\'t an excuse, that thing was a money sink. They made it to capitalize on the new market for LoTR products, but once the movies stopped coming, the customers quickly lost interest. This could have continued longer if New Line Cinema would stop messing around and hire Peter Jackson back. Unfortunately the customers for the games lost interest much sooner than expected and left GW with several large projects to expand the game, without a fan base.

I applaud GW for expanding their markets in multiple directions. They brought themselves into the gaming world early and have managed to stay in there and keep with it. They managed to even gain quite a bit of fandom in just that market alone, allowing them to make up for losses in the miniatures market. They\'ve created an expansive literature collection that is well respected in the Fantasy novel market. Likewise they\'ve still managed to maintain a good quality of miniature throughout.

*The result of a lawsuit against a gaming company that made and released a game that was a rip of Bloodbowl to it\'s very core. GW won the suit but gave the company the rights to make games based on and with the Bloodbowl name. Oddly when the company that bought Mythic Entertainment (the guys making the Warhammer Online Game), was bought out by EA entertainment (The largest and most respected sports video game maker).

The market strategy I would use would be to hire hot chicks and dress them as Dark Elf Witch Elves, and Sisters of Battle befuddling the average game geek with ample amounts of cleavage, making them unaware of the money they are spending.

See Warhammer online. It\'s the current marketing strategy that in several of the gaming conventions that Mythic has presented to, they\'ll bring along people dressed as the current two races they are working on. So when it comes down to them working on the Dark Elves and High Elves, expect scantily clad women.

 

[finn17]

I am obviously quiite ignorant then....

Originally posted by Dedwrekka
To say that they\'ve failed to either retain old customers or gain new customers is quite ignorant.

But then again so is Tom Kirby, because that is pretty much what he is admitting to.

 

[War Griffon]

With recent articles in WD stating the likes of Jervis Johnson claiming to have lost the meaning of the game and getting back to the roots (this has been going on for a few months now), maybe they should be looking to go right back to the 80/90\'s and instead of re-vamping the armies every couple of years bring out completely new scenario\'s like they used to with Orc\'s Drift/Terror of the Liech Master and instead of just the books for this type of scenario bring out the new figures for this sort of release therefore giving the player and collector something to look forward to.

Yes I know they have done similar with Battle for McCrage and Battle for Skull Pass but you could hardley class the figures in these as good let alone great in the case of Skull pass and both sets are aimed at beginners as starter sets.

I like the idea of a coffee shop incorporated into the gaming room/area surely they have learnt the benefits of this from Warhammer World???

 

[james sequeira]

Our shop used to have a vending machine with hot drinks, chocolate, crisps and cans. Sure it didnt bring in huge amounts each week but it boosted the takings when you looked at how much it brought in each year. The magic players loved it. Mainly because they didnt have to walk into town lol

 

[Highbulp Billy]

I was just wondering - of all those of you who went to Games Day last year, were you approached by any GW staff doing market research and finding out what you liked/disliked/wanted to see from GW etc? I would have thought that would have been basic marketing practice when you have thousands of customers and potential customers in one place and your company is struggling to find it\'s direction.

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by Dedwrekka
See Warhammer online. It\'s the current marketing strategy that in several of the gaming conventions that Mythic has presented to, they\'ll bring along people dressed as the current two races they are working on. So when it comes down to them working on the Dark Elves and High Elves, expect scantily clad women.

Aye, I\'m upgrading my computer this weekend to prepare for Warhammer Online.
I figure, if it\'s $14.99 a month, the standard, It will come out cheaper than buying a new army, and less hassle than trying trying to get a tabletop game going.
I recently got Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and am enjoying it. I have all three Dawn of War titles and while boring after a while are still good for a quick game now and then.

 

[War Griffon]

Originally posted by Highbulp Billy
I was just wondering - of all those of you who went to Games Day last year, were you approached by any GW staff doing market research and finding out what you liked/disliked/wanted to see from GW etc? I would have thought that would have been basic marketing practice when you have thousands of customers and potential customers in one place and your company is struggling to find it\'s direction.

Nope not at all and as far as I know nobody was.

 

[Gilvan Blight]

GW and Video games.

This isn\'t new. I personally own a ton of GW software. There\'s Space Hulk, then Space Hulk (not sure why they didn\'t call it space hulk two, but they replaced the original with a new better one), HeroQuest, Bloodbowl (yes there was a BloodBowl game official one, for DOS), Fire Warior, That 40K one based on the Generals series that featured Eldar, Two Warhammer Fantasy games (Shadows of the Horned Rat and that other one I can\'t remember), I think there are a couple more that I am forgetting as well.

The big difference now with Dawn of War at least (haven\'t tried Mark of Chaos) is that they are finally making good games.

One other market that was missed is Roleplaying, GW bought back the rights for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay form Hogshead and recently released a 2rd edition. Coming soon is the first of three rulebooks for the Warhammer 40K Dark Heresy rpg.

I am definately looking forward to Warhammer Online, been watching this game through 3 devs now. Keep trying to get in the beta, but so far no luck.

What I would love to see though, is these \'special\' ranges to be carried and supported by my local GW shop. I shouldn\'t have to buy my Warhammer Minis at one store, and my Warhammer rulebooks (for roleplay) at another.

 

[noneedforaname]

Iseem to remember many years ago they did a questionniare in white dwarf tied in with a competition to win one of every boxed set. They could do that again but we all know GW hate giving away free stuff.

 

[uberdark]

Iseem to remember many years ago they did a questionniare in white dwarf tied in with a competition to win one of every boxed set. They could do that again but we all know GW hate giving away free stuff.
_______________________________________

actually they did that last month.... if you bought a subscription to white dwarf that is.

 

[Rodnik]

To say that they\'ve failed to either retain old customers or gain new customers is quite ignorant

My bad. The situation must be much worse than I originally thought then.

Any company that can demonstrates net gains in customers, and then demonstrates consistent drops in profit, doesn\'t need a \"refocus\", they need to consider entirely new leadership.

As far as Warhammer Online netting them money----that project hasn\'t produced anything but costs to date--as it hasn\'t released yet. Considering this software development is outside of GWs core competency, it becomes a risky business venture. Considering, also, they\'ve outsourced this competency to Mythic--it becomes even more risky---simply because the titles that Mythic has produced in the past carry very little of the market share (DAoC, for example). I mean, the last time something like this was attempted, we got D&D Online-----risky stuff.

Regardless of the risks--I actually *hope* they succeed in all their ventures.

But the downward profits trends, coupled with the high risk markets of software (not to mention gaming software), coupled with spending serious amounts of money AWAY from their core competency makes for a situation that should/would raise the eyebrows of any financial analyst.

I wish \'em luck.