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Author Topic: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread  (Read 1683489 times)

Offline TWD

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8430 on: May 22, 2018, 08:09:49 AM »
Tournaments sell models.. That is one of the marketing strategies that pays up..


That simply isn't true for GW.
Tournament players makeup a tiny minority of GW customers.
Even if a small number of tournament players spend a lot for money on soldiers that is far, far outweighed by the huge number of kids dropping £50 a month on Space Marines.
Given that tournament players are often experts in using eBay and other secondary markets as well as the habit of some of selling one army to fund the next they're not a significant sales market for GW.

In an immature market like Poland the influence of tournament players will be disproportionate, but globally it's all about "churn and burn" players who are throwing down whatever they've got in GW stores or on their kitchen table.

At one point (around the turn of the century) GW saw tournaments as a marketing tool. A way of promoting a "top tier" of the hobby (inthe same way the Champons League inspires park fotballers). But they've spent the last 15 or so years distancing themselves from that.

Offline JamesValentine

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8431 on: May 22, 2018, 01:24:43 PM »
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/05/21/21st-may-warhammer-adventures-tales-for-younger-readersgw-homepage-post-1/

Gw books for young kids...seriously GW get your house in order first ffs, also kinda get aos but 40!? This kinda puts me off GW tbh.
Considering the adults don't give a crap about the background of 40k anymore they have to target somebody.

Offline pixelgeek

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8432 on: May 22, 2018, 06:48:23 PM »
Even if a small number of tournament players spend a lot for money on soldiers that is far, far outweighed by the huge number of kids dropping £50 a month on Space Marines.

I know this is the common perception of GW's business model but at least in terms of non-GW game stores it quite simply isn't true. The store I work in sells a lot of 40K and the number of "burn and churn" customers we have is minimal. Almost zero in fact. The majority of our customers are older gamers and are dedicated to their hobby.

Offline waitwhat

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8433 on: May 22, 2018, 07:36:13 PM »
A bit off-topic but I quit MtG because it became a game of checking the current set's most effective decks on the net, then buying the cards needed for that deck and playing that till the next set comes out.

Ok, at the risk of going off topic this has almost never been true (speaking as a player since 94). The nature of magic is that as a deck rises in the metagame it's own dominance factors against it as players can increasingly play very specific counter strategies and the deck itself must adapt to the mirror. In even the most degenerate of formats (which has really only happened about 4 or 5 times to my recollection) there are always at least two or three tier 1 lists.

I don't think the "net decking" complaint has really been meaningful in 10+ years since that level of information is so trivially and widely accessible to all.

Anyways. Magic is magic. It suits tournaments. Wargames imho really don't, and both are good things.

Offline JamesValentine

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8434 on: May 22, 2018, 08:36:17 PM »
A bit off-topic but I quit MtG because it became a game of checking the current set's most effective decks on the net, then buying the cards needed for that deck and playing that till the next set comes out.
After that I tried one of the videogame versions but it turns out not even that allows free deckbuilding anymore so I assume that's the way the game's supposed to be played now? *shrug*

As I've understood it that's the kind of thing going on in miniature tournament gaming too, at least 40k. Can't say if it's spread there from Magic or from there to Magic though.
This ridiculousness.
100× this ridiculousness.
It's a cancer that Magic has allot to answer for.

Offline Belligerentparrot

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8435 on: May 22, 2018, 10:16:41 PM »
Well, a cancer seems a bit over the top...

Actually I really don't see anything to complain about.

I quite like GW games. The way I like to play them, power-gamers are pretty much playing a completely different game. Why would it bother me if other folks like playing a completely different game?
(Same goes for my experience of MtG: find good people, play good games).

Offline FramFramson

  • Elder God
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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8436 on: May 23, 2018, 12:33:59 AM »
I have actually played MtG since 1994 and complaints about "net-decking" always sound rather amusingly quaint to me, a bit like a complaint about the internet in general.

I didn't think there'd be much animus to MtG here; I would have assumed indifference, really.

Anyway, in that same time period I've also been involved in various tabletop wargaming scenes as well, and tournaments have always been present there too. Maybe a very specific subset of games would have a minimal or no tournament scene at all (say, old-style mass historicals), but for tabletop stuff in general, there's usually some sort of recurring official competitive format.


I joined my gun with pirate swords, and sailed the seas of cyberspace.

Offline TWD

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8437 on: May 23, 2018, 05:41:53 PM »
I know this is the common perception of GW's business model but at least in terms of non-GW game stores it quite simply isn't true. The store I work in sells a lot of 40K and the number of "burn and churn" customers we have is minimal. Almost zero in fact. The majority of our customers are older gamers and are dedicated to their hobby.
I wasn't denying that there are older gamers.
Clearly there are. I am one myself. :)
I was denying the assertion that Tournaments generate sales.

I think I might want a somewhat bigger sample than "the store you work in" to decide that adult, dedicated gamers make up the bulk of the hobby. :D

However the changes over the last few years have clearly targeted an older, nostalgic demographic than previously,  and been rewarded with record sales (though volume has also played a part) so perhaps the older gamers are more significant than GW has previously believed.

Offline Ray Rivers

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8438 on: May 24, 2018, 11:01:58 AM »
Even if a small number of tournament players spend a lot for money on soldiers that is far, far outweighed by the huge number of kids dropping £50 a month on Space Marines.

Nah... the kids are all playing Frostgrave.  ;)

I think one of the things you folks don't appreciate is how many folks out there are simply collectors. Collectors aren't kids. They buy miniatures they enjoy painting.

I'm a collector of GW models. I like them for their character and detail. I appreciate them moving from 28mm to 40mm because you get more detail and they are easier on the eyes to paint.

BTW there is a great Youtube channel on AoS by a Brit who is a collector. His name is Kitetsu. Check him out:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTX2KaSsRsy_HAQgEDs59lg

Offline pixelgeek

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8439 on: May 24, 2018, 02:26:43 PM »
I think I might want a somewhat bigger sample than "the store you work in" to decide that adult, dedicated gamers make up the bulk of the hobby. :D

Well it is probably the biggest game store on the planet. My experience with other independent retailers is the same though. From talking to them in person or at trade events they almost all have the same experience of their 40K and AoS client base.

I suspect that if there are any churn and burn kids they are probably going to be at GW stores since people with no experience of the hobby would go there directly. The amount of product available at the average GW outlet now is pretty small though so I don't know how much an impact that makes since anyone getting more involved in the hobby will have to buy somewhere other than a local GW location.

However the changes over the last few years have clearly targeted an older, nostalgic demographic than previously,  and been rewarded with record sales (though volume has also played a part) so perhaps the older gamers are more significant than GW has previously believed.

I don't think that it is nostalgia as much as GW is working to bring back their Specialist Games range and their "non-core" titles as they have been asked for more than a decade. They have these existing and established properties and it makes sense for them to once again expand them to help broaden their market. The fact that we have nostalgic feelings for them shouldn't be confused with GW marketing them as nostalgia titles. We all need to try to step out of our own shoes and look at these releases independent of our own presumptions about them.

They are using them to get gamers into their marketspace in the way that the games were used, accidentally or deliberately, in the past. Necromunda has a totally different experience in the core boxed set than it did previously for instance. Its just that not a lot of companies would build a huge range of games like this and then ignore them for as long as GW has.

Offline pixelgeek

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8440 on: May 24, 2018, 02:28:31 PM »
I think one of the things you folks don't appreciate is how many folks out there are simply collectors.

I'd be surprised if this market, at least in terms of GW sales, was very large at all. The fact that Tom Kirby thought that collectors were a large part of the GW market makes me assume that this is not the case.  ;)

Offline Ray Rivers

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8441 on: May 24, 2018, 03:42:29 PM »
I'd be surprised if this market, at least in terms of GW sales, was very large at all. The fact that Tom Kirby thought that collectors were a large part of the GW market makes me assume that this is not the case.  ;)

They are nevertheless a factor. To what extent I don't know, but if you were to be playing a video game, and buying all the premium stuff available, you would be termed a "Whale." And believe me, the "whales" impact the direction of the company.

Offline Derek H

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8442 on: May 24, 2018, 04:19:09 PM »
Well it is probably the biggest game store on the planet.

A large non-representative sample isn't any more representative than a small one.   If that were the case we could just survey the population of Shanghai if we wanted to find out what's going on worldwide. 
« Last Edit: May 24, 2018, 04:21:18 PM by Derek H »

Offline pixelgeek

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8443 on: May 24, 2018, 05:26:32 PM »
A large non-representative sample isn't any more representative than a small one.

Its a bit odd to quote one sentence and then ignore the next that expands on it.

Offline pixelgeek

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Re: The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread
« Reply #8444 on: May 24, 2018, 05:27:21 PM »
They are nevertheless a factor. To what extent I don't know, but if you were to be playing a video game, and buying all the premium stuff available, you would be termed a "Whale." And believe me, the "whales" impact the direction of the company.

Do you spend more than $10,000 a month on minis? If not then you're not even close to being a whale. :)

 

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