Post by dg1 on Mar 22, 2013 8:23:54 GMT -6
Consistent with its prior initiative, GW is instituting effective June 15, 2013 new policies designed to limit more severely Internet sales, restrict or ban international sales, ban sales of parts and bits out of its product boxes, and limit sales of direct order products by its resellers and retailers. The purported motive behind this is to buttress the brick and mortar retailers that stock its products. This policy is first announced in the US and Canada. GW's pricing has varied from one country to the next, sometimes significantly. GW is trying to limit the amount of cross-border "arbitrage" where GW customers in one country (say Canada) can buy online or through phone orders products in another company at a cheaper price adjusted for exchange rates (say US).
See, for example:
An Open (Video) Letter to Games Workshop - YouTube► 21:02► 21:02www.youtube.com/watch?v=isXNJMhBteYShare
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Jun 3, 2011 - Uploaded by miniwargaming
To Games Workshop: This is meant to be constructive, so please watch ... Response to Mini Wargaming ...
NEWS: Miniwargaming Responds to Games Workshop ...www.belloflostsouls.net › warhammer fantasyCachedShare
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1 day ago – warhammer 40k, warhammer fantasy, video, news/rumors.
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Due to the recent changes to Games Workshop's trade policies, as well as other factors, we have decided to close the MiniWarGaming store. This will be our ...
Screwed Up Dice: Games Workshop, Online Retailers, and Bitsscrewedupdice.blogspot.com/.../games-workshop-online-retail...CachedShare
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3 days ago – In that 2003 Policy, GAMES WORKSHOP recognized that the online retail sale ... By way of illustration, but not limitation, North American Retailers are ... Brand on the Internet: It is important that the GAMES WORKSHOP brand ...
You visited this page on 3/21/13.
Games Workshop Shuts Down Internet Retailers
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3 days ago – By way of illustration, but not limitation, North American Retailers are ... In that 2003 Policy, GAMES WORKSHOP reserved online sales of its ...
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1. In order to be approved and licensed to receive and sell GW products, one must have a physical store located in a commercial zone. One may advertise that one sells GW products on the Internet and elsewhere but may not have an online shopping cart or other meants of selling products other than through the store (possibly phone orders are still legal).
2. An approved reseller/retailer of GW products may not sell GW products out of the box or in parts. For example, one cannot take a starter box or a battalion box and open it up and sell the individual sprues and units separately. One also cannot take a multiple model box (like three demigryphs) and sell individual models. One cannot break up a sprue and sell bits.
3. An approved seller (at least in the US and Canada) can no longer sell or ship product outside of the country of residence.
4. The direct order products (older metal models still in inventory or production or in finecast or limited run plastic models) cannot be held as inventory in stores and must either be ordered online from GW (no discount) or special ordered from approved retailers with the volumes of sales by those retailers of such products limited to say $500 per month. This means, reportedly, some 1800 of GW's 2500 products cannot be stocked in retail stores. This will likely limit further retail store revenues and enhance GW's direct sales and margins.
5. There will be an effort to promote and favour stores approved to sell GW products to stock adequate GW inventories (not the direct sales items) and promote with acceptable displays GW products.
6. Approved retailers will be limited to one free shipment per week from GW (already partly enforced).
7. As already in effect since the second half of 2012 in order to limit rumors and leakage of information before the for sale date, retail stores and resellers authorized to sell GW products are prohibited from selling, displaying or otherwise disclosing the contents of GW products prior to their official "for sale" date. Violation of this policy may mean the loss of the ability of a retail store to pre-order and advance order products and receive those products in time to stock and sell them on the first authorized "for sale" date for six months, possibly permanently if egregious violations discovered.
8. GW is purportedly trying to crack down on the grey market, such as the known sellers on e-bay. Whether this will be successful is an open question, but the ability to buy bits from Hoard of Bits and wbits, known volume bits sellers, and discounted boxes and units from a number of the known e-bay volume sellers of the most popular and common GW products is supposedly going to be attacked and addressed somehow. GW intends to "protect" its IP, including not allowing use of its product images and materials online except through GW's official web site.
The suggestion is that these policies may favour adoption and promotion of GW products by brick and mortar retail stores in the US and Canada but really will force people to buy more products directly from GW at full prices. Since GW sells at a discount to approved resellers and retail stores, GW realizes substantially greater revenues and profit margins when customers buy directly from GW or in official GW stores. This may be part of a continuing trend on the part of GW to grow revenues and expand profit margins (after GW's sales declined steadily from a peak in fiscal 2004 to a low in fiscal 2007, year ended end of May/beginning of June each year). GW reported a loss in fiscal 2007 and barely was profitable in fiscal 2008. Since then, its revenues have recovered some amount but its profits have increased dramatically with price increases and new product rollouts.
While I fully support GW's right to protect its IP and earn a profit that reflects the commercial goodwill and IP value it has created over the years, some of these policies are extremely short-sighted. They risk creating a continuing trend of erosion of the loyal customer base and replacement with less reliable churn and burn customer revenues where they sell a new army to a new player but the player drops out quickly rather than remaining loyal for many years and being a continuing loyal customer.
These new policies reflect in part GW's thin skin and unwillingness to allow and listen to dissent, effort to control dissent and efforts to excessively control the discussion and marketing of its products. While GW has a right to do what it wants and has done some good and great things and I love playing WHFB and loved playing LOTR (until GW wrote a horrible War of the Rings rule book and tried to force everyone to buy more models to play WOTR), GW needs to listen to constructive criticism from those of us that love the game and want to see it succeed and grow in terms of numbers, critical mass and popularity.
That includes addressing issues of internal and external balance and addressing the concerns (including more active monitoring and tweaking rules through errata and FAQs) in order to ensure that the games are not just fun but also balanced enough to encourage people to want to play the game and all the models. The silly excuses for sloppy rules writing and game design (this is designed to be a game to play models you build and paint and not to be competitive game, the "golden rule", etc.) wear thin over time. I undersand how hard it is to write rules and anticipate every contingency in the rules. I also appreciate that the groups writing the rules may have one understanding but may not see how others might read or perceive a written rule. However, neglecting to even think about the victory conditions in the 8th edition rule book and having to put an insert in the book right after printing was a bit much; how can one design a game without play-testing and thinking about the win conditions for a variety of possible uses and experiences, including competitive tournament play? GW can spend untold amounts of time and money writing the fluff and content in the army book and designing and developing new models and replacements for old models but, seemingly, often appears to make the actual points costs decisions and certain rules as an after-thought without considering how those point costs and units will actually interact and play in an actual army and against other armies. It is as though there is such an aversion to rigorous play-testing and feedback and competitive play in GW that they go out of their way to provoke those that enjoy that format.
Ironically, I suspect GW would find its sales would increase dramatically if it made all of the models and options in each of its rule books, army books and codices more balanced, or at least playable (at least pretended to make or made more of an effort at balance, rather than favouring one model, unit or item and nerfing or disfavouring another within each book and across books, like, for example the Daemon Prince in the new WoC book as compared with the the same model in the new DoC army book). People (like my family) that can afford it, would buy and play all or at least most of the models in their preferred armies and switch up their armies more regularly if that were the case. Instead, some models GW would like to sell hardly get sold at all (end up on direct order soon after introduction) while other models get sold a lot, leading to cookie cutter and limited numbers of viable army builds for each army within the current rules. This leads to a stale game and quicker burn out.
Even in a casual game, people tend to want a fair game and not feel like they've hardly got a chance when they come to the table. I like and do not mind randomness as long as it adds an interesting tactical or strategic decision to the game with risk-reward tradeoffs. But adding silly randomness (like the Reign of Chaos table in the new Daemons of Chaos WHFB army book) and over-powered potential "I win" spells (dwellers, final transmutation, dreaded 13th, purple sun) and "I lose consequences" (blowing your wizard up on a miscast, killing your greater daemon or lord due to bad luck on the Reign of Chaos table) is not the answer. It just frustrates people, even casual players, by making the game more about luck and less about in-game tactics and interesting strategic choices in army builds that take into account the interesting and natural random elements (roll to charge, roll to shoot, roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save) of a game and have context and meaning in terms of the game design.
See, for example:
An Open (Video) Letter to Games Workshop - YouTube► 21:02► 21:02www.youtube.com/watch?v=isXNJMhBteYShare
Shared on Google+. View the post.
Jun 3, 2011 - Uploaded by miniwargaming
To Games Workshop: This is meant to be constructive, so please watch ... Response to Mini Wargaming ...
NEWS: Miniwargaming Responds to Games Workshop ...www.belloflostsouls.net › warhammer fantasyCachedShare
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1 day ago – warhammer 40k, warhammer fantasy, video, news/rumors.
MiniWargaming.comstore.miniwargaming.com/Cached - SimilarShare
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Due to the recent changes to Games Workshop's trade policies, as well as other factors, we have decided to close the MiniWarGaming store. This will be our ...
Screwed Up Dice: Games Workshop, Online Retailers, and Bitsscrewedupdice.blogspot.com/.../games-workshop-online-retail...CachedShare
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3 days ago – In that 2003 Policy, GAMES WORKSHOP recognized that the online retail sale ... By way of illustration, but not limitation, North American Retailers are ... Brand on the Internet: It is important that the GAMES WORKSHOP brand ...
You visited this page on 3/21/13.
Games Workshop Shuts Down Internet Retailers
pinsofwar.com/games-workshop-shuts-down-internet-retailers/CachedShare
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3 days ago – By way of illustration, but not limitation, North American Retailers are ... In that 2003 Policy, GAMES WORKSHOP reserved online sales of its ...
You visited this page on 3/21/13.
1. In order to be approved and licensed to receive and sell GW products, one must have a physical store located in a commercial zone. One may advertise that one sells GW products on the Internet and elsewhere but may not have an online shopping cart or other meants of selling products other than through the store (possibly phone orders are still legal).
2. An approved reseller/retailer of GW products may not sell GW products out of the box or in parts. For example, one cannot take a starter box or a battalion box and open it up and sell the individual sprues and units separately. One also cannot take a multiple model box (like three demigryphs) and sell individual models. One cannot break up a sprue and sell bits.
3. An approved seller (at least in the US and Canada) can no longer sell or ship product outside of the country of residence.
4. The direct order products (older metal models still in inventory or production or in finecast or limited run plastic models) cannot be held as inventory in stores and must either be ordered online from GW (no discount) or special ordered from approved retailers with the volumes of sales by those retailers of such products limited to say $500 per month. This means, reportedly, some 1800 of GW's 2500 products cannot be stocked in retail stores. This will likely limit further retail store revenues and enhance GW's direct sales and margins.
5. There will be an effort to promote and favour stores approved to sell GW products to stock adequate GW inventories (not the direct sales items) and promote with acceptable displays GW products.
6. Approved retailers will be limited to one free shipment per week from GW (already partly enforced).
7. As already in effect since the second half of 2012 in order to limit rumors and leakage of information before the for sale date, retail stores and resellers authorized to sell GW products are prohibited from selling, displaying or otherwise disclosing the contents of GW products prior to their official "for sale" date. Violation of this policy may mean the loss of the ability of a retail store to pre-order and advance order products and receive those products in time to stock and sell them on the first authorized "for sale" date for six months, possibly permanently if egregious violations discovered.
8. GW is purportedly trying to crack down on the grey market, such as the known sellers on e-bay. Whether this will be successful is an open question, but the ability to buy bits from Hoard of Bits and wbits, known volume bits sellers, and discounted boxes and units from a number of the known e-bay volume sellers of the most popular and common GW products is supposedly going to be attacked and addressed somehow. GW intends to "protect" its IP, including not allowing use of its product images and materials online except through GW's official web site.
The suggestion is that these policies may favour adoption and promotion of GW products by brick and mortar retail stores in the US and Canada but really will force people to buy more products directly from GW at full prices. Since GW sells at a discount to approved resellers and retail stores, GW realizes substantially greater revenues and profit margins when customers buy directly from GW or in official GW stores. This may be part of a continuing trend on the part of GW to grow revenues and expand profit margins (after GW's sales declined steadily from a peak in fiscal 2004 to a low in fiscal 2007, year ended end of May/beginning of June each year). GW reported a loss in fiscal 2007 and barely was profitable in fiscal 2008. Since then, its revenues have recovered some amount but its profits have increased dramatically with price increases and new product rollouts.
While I fully support GW's right to protect its IP and earn a profit that reflects the commercial goodwill and IP value it has created over the years, some of these policies are extremely short-sighted. They risk creating a continuing trend of erosion of the loyal customer base and replacement with less reliable churn and burn customer revenues where they sell a new army to a new player but the player drops out quickly rather than remaining loyal for many years and being a continuing loyal customer.
These new policies reflect in part GW's thin skin and unwillingness to allow and listen to dissent, effort to control dissent and efforts to excessively control the discussion and marketing of its products. While GW has a right to do what it wants and has done some good and great things and I love playing WHFB and loved playing LOTR (until GW wrote a horrible War of the Rings rule book and tried to force everyone to buy more models to play WOTR), GW needs to listen to constructive criticism from those of us that love the game and want to see it succeed and grow in terms of numbers, critical mass and popularity.
That includes addressing issues of internal and external balance and addressing the concerns (including more active monitoring and tweaking rules through errata and FAQs) in order to ensure that the games are not just fun but also balanced enough to encourage people to want to play the game and all the models. The silly excuses for sloppy rules writing and game design (this is designed to be a game to play models you build and paint and not to be competitive game, the "golden rule", etc.) wear thin over time. I undersand how hard it is to write rules and anticipate every contingency in the rules. I also appreciate that the groups writing the rules may have one understanding but may not see how others might read or perceive a written rule. However, neglecting to even think about the victory conditions in the 8th edition rule book and having to put an insert in the book right after printing was a bit much; how can one design a game without play-testing and thinking about the win conditions for a variety of possible uses and experiences, including competitive tournament play? GW can spend untold amounts of time and money writing the fluff and content in the army book and designing and developing new models and replacements for old models but, seemingly, often appears to make the actual points costs decisions and certain rules as an after-thought without considering how those point costs and units will actually interact and play in an actual army and against other armies. It is as though there is such an aversion to rigorous play-testing and feedback and competitive play in GW that they go out of their way to provoke those that enjoy that format.
Ironically, I suspect GW would find its sales would increase dramatically if it made all of the models and options in each of its rule books, army books and codices more balanced, or at least playable (at least pretended to make or made more of an effort at balance, rather than favouring one model, unit or item and nerfing or disfavouring another within each book and across books, like, for example the Daemon Prince in the new WoC book as compared with the the same model in the new DoC army book). People (like my family) that can afford it, would buy and play all or at least most of the models in their preferred armies and switch up their armies more regularly if that were the case. Instead, some models GW would like to sell hardly get sold at all (end up on direct order soon after introduction) while other models get sold a lot, leading to cookie cutter and limited numbers of viable army builds for each army within the current rules. This leads to a stale game and quicker burn out.
Even in a casual game, people tend to want a fair game and not feel like they've hardly got a chance when they come to the table. I like and do not mind randomness as long as it adds an interesting tactical or strategic decision to the game with risk-reward tradeoffs. But adding silly randomness (like the Reign of Chaos table in the new Daemons of Chaos WHFB army book) and over-powered potential "I win" spells (dwellers, final transmutation, dreaded 13th, purple sun) and "I lose consequences" (blowing your wizard up on a miscast, killing your greater daemon or lord due to bad luck on the Reign of Chaos table) is not the answer. It just frustrates people, even casual players, by making the game more about luck and less about in-game tactics and interesting strategic choices in army builds that take into account the interesting and natural random elements (roll to charge, roll to shoot, roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save) of a game and have context and meaning in terms of the game design.