Quote from: Leon on 27 April 2013, 09:46:03 PM
That's just ridiculous.  We've mentioned this in previous discussions, but they have such a lack of originality now, that all they can do is produce higher priced models and hope people buy them.  Profit margins may increase, but actual sales will go down.  Once the Hobbit surge has expired, where do they go next?  I'm surprised they haven't managed to get their claws into Game of Thrones yet.

Actually, with all the successful Kickstarters we've seen in the past year, Reaper, Dwarf Forge, Mantic, why isn't someone at GW headquarters looking at these idea's and looking to produce something similar?  The latest Mantic one with modular Sci-Fi terrain would be an easy area for GW to get into with their spending power.  If you don't have the ability to come up with the idea's yourself, at least follow the trends to try and claim a share of the market.

Leon: Price rise in 2008 or 2009 15%, Sales increase 1 %.

ANY sane businessman would be wondering HOW they can loose so much sales. It is not only the price!  Recent prise rise seen a moderate rise in sales with TWO major releases. That is BAD!

Now if you are actually one of the "we are the hobby" non-entities from Nottingham you SHOULD wonder even more. You should because your CEO announced your product is non-sensitive to price (which means no matter what the price it will be sold). If such was the case - the notion as such is insane in itself btw. - then why did you loose sales?

Secondly a CEO that announces in an annual general meeting that 25 % of his customers buy any sh.t at any price and he does not give a flying f.ck (sic!) about the rest should be relieved of his position immediately.

The truth is GW is trying hard to drive gamers out of the stores, make their stores supermarkets (come, buy, pay, leave FAST!). The price rises do not realise any positive effect anymore, stores are not that well visited, it all comes up to one thing:

GW IS LOOSING SALES! MASSIVELY!

I have come back to gaming after 10 years abstinence in 2008. From 2010 on I have been p.ssed of by this company in Nottingham like in the period between 1989 - 1998. 2 years vs 9 years.

Since 2011 I can say I have replaced any good product (yes some stuff IS good but overpriced) with cheaper and better alternatives. Colours of all sorts now come from Pendraken, so do the brushes and the Sand / Textures etc. Don't forget the bases! The only thing I still buy local is the glue (I have connections  ).

The quality of my supplies has gone up massively.

The quality of the minis I buy : ditto! I only buy from people I like    (sorry Leon there are some others)

Quality of my gaming experience? Has gone up as well. People outside 40K / WHFB are nicer, more relaxed and, face it, as a minority generally happy to find a gaming buddy. No powergaming, no "it must be like this we are the hobby crap". Simply fun.

In 2010 I was angry at those prices, bought some Pendraken figures  was happy.

In 2013 I see the prices in Nottingham, I shake my head laughing, still buy Pendraken figures and am happy. 

Anyone remember White Dwarf magazine pre-GW?

Used to be worth reading.

Yes, especially this:
The contents page of White Dwarf 77 (May 1986) contained a coded message by the then editor Ian Marsh, who made the description of each item spell out "S O D O F F B R Y A N A N S E L L" This was due to a protest against the changes Ansell had demanded of the magazine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sod-off-bryan-ansell.png

I'm not sure if we've discussed this particular aspect before, (I think we have actually) BUT......

Are they working on the basis that they know they have certain (obviously) extremely wealthy customers who will pay ANY price for the 'kudos' of owning the figures..... for simple bragging rights and 'one-upmanship'
After the initial (feeble) sales they can drop the price to something approaching 'normality' and make them seem like a bargain.

What disappoints me most is the lack of originality in the models as has already been mentioned.
They look SO similar in pose to some Warmaster (tm ) Dark Elf 'strips' I made about 9 years ago for them....Which were completed as far as I was concerned..They then moved the goalposts  for the umpteenth time, and I politely told them to forget it.

Those are still gathering dust in a box....Sadly of no use to Leon, because they're really too small for the PD fantasy range.
There's a limit 'pose wise' with what you can do with little 'spearmen' in metal.....But plastics ?
These aren't just massively overpriced....They're so DULL.

Each time this topic comes up.....It never fails to take my breath away.

Will's note above.....
I believe.....
That was really down to the fact that the WD 'headquarters' was moved from London to Nottingham, and was a final protest from the London bods who didn't want to relocate to Notts.

Cheers - Phil.

Quote from: fsn on 28 April 2013, 07:10:07 AM
Anyone remember White Dwarf magazine pre-GW?

Used to be worth reading.

yes. And I've still  got some of them !

Issue 53 - Battle of Minas Tirith for Warhammer 1st Edition has a LOT to answer for!
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv182/Quendil_photos/LOTR/WD53Cover.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic%3D43918.0&h=1023&w=738&sz=462&tbnid=xOnk0pJaeUHKIM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=82&zoom=1&usg=__KfC5e2jk_7WXoq3Z4smxuWXzGTc=&docid=vqhprC1bNtvNhM&sa=X&ei=T9R8UYaUN8qI0AWUr4GYBA&ved=0CEIQ9QEwBA&dur=188

Quote from: fsn on 28 April 2013, 07:10:07 AM
Anyone remember White Dwarf magazine pre-GW?

Used to be worth reading.

Nobody remembers White Dwarf  pre-GW, it was always produced by them. 

And it was always a bit of a house magazine.  In the early days you got lots of articles about games produced by other companies, but they were usually games imported or distributed by GW.

My alternative ending to Carry On GW that I did for the GW Rant post.



Cheers, Michael

 

Very good Michael . I'm just so happy that Mr Harwood introduced me to the 10mm and Pendraken .

Quote from: Techno on 28 April 2013, 07:24:35 AM
I'm not sure if we've discussed this particular aspect before, (I think we have actually) BUT......

Are they working on the basis that they know they have certain (obviously) extremely wealthy customers who will pay ANY price for the 'kudos' of owning the figures..... for simple bragging rights and 'one-upmanship'
After the initial (feeble) sales they can drop the price to something approaching 'normality' and make them seem like a bargain.

What disappoints me most is the lack of originality in the models as has already been mentioned.
They look SO similar in pose to some Warmaster (tm ) Dark Elf 'strips' I made about 9 years ago for them....Which were completed as far as I was concerned..They then moved the goalposts  for the umpteenth time, and I politely told them to forget it.

Those are still gathering dust in a box....Sadly of no use to Leon, because they're really too small for the PD fantasy range.
There's a limit 'pose wise' with what you can do with little 'spearmen' in metal.....But plastics ?
These aren't just massively overpriced....They're so DULL.

Each time this topic comes up.....It never fails to take my breath away.

Will's note above.....
I believe.....
That was really down to the fact that the WD 'headquarters' was moved from London to Nottingham, and was a final protest from the London bods who didn't want to relocate to Notts.

Cheers - Phil.

As always a pleasure to read this Phil.

Lack of originality? How can they. Uniformity is what they aim for!

How so some of you may ask? Well, they are "the hobby" - nothing else exists beside them (yes we all know better than that but there are poor souls who don't).

Have a look at Mantic Games Elves. Critics keep argueing they are too thin. NO FFS THEY ARE NOT! GWs elfs are the obese ones!

GW has, justly so I believe, achieved a dominating position in the market BUT for a number of years is now abusing their monopoly.

Extremely wealthy customers? Strange I always assume they aimed for the lower end of society as they are easier to influence. Please correct me but the son of a wealthy lawyer, government official... (you name it) would face a severe telling off if his ancestors find out their offspring is mixing with lower class people (no offense, I am one of them I guess).

In my Master we have learned that in a monopoly/ oligopoly your sales volume is not very sensitive to changes in price. In plain english you need to change the prices a lot to achieve higher or lower market share. Hence Price wars do not make sense. GW no interprets this as they can get away from loosing too many players by slowly moving the prices up.

Yet there is a significant error in this thinking. At some point - I hope it is not too far off - the prices have reached a certain level players are no longer willing to pay. The problem is the resulting move away from GW to other hobbies/ systems will not come in a trickling effect but in an avalanche! Has always been the case in other industries and will eb the case for GW. Another problem is that their targeted customers are not collectors and serious gamers, no it is 13 year old who prefer video games over building, painting and THEN playing their Marines or whatever they got.

As said before I have now successfully moved away from GW and should I need another set of pliers some day I will buy it somewhere else. The tool GW offers in this instance is great but I know what the original model is called and know whom to ask where to buy it.

GW may not be interested that they lost me as a customer. Maybe they do not care about all of us here on the forum BUT I believe at one point they will care becuase this move is visible across many forae and many gaming communities already.

Quote from: sebigboss79 on 29 April 2013, 10:26:32 AM
As said before I have now successfully moved away from GW and should I need another set of pliers some day I will buy it somewhere else. The tool GW offers in this instance is great but I know what the original model is called and know whom to ask where to buy it.

Share! Share! Share!

It is called "a Knippex" in Germany. Basically anyone in electrics will be able to tell you where to get a decent one for the job at hand.

Problem is, you will possibly only buy one in yoir life as they are indestructible.

possibly would go for those:

http://www.knipex.com/index.php?id=1216&L=1&page=group_detail&parentID=1336&groupID=1337

@Leon/Mods if that Link is not appropriate here please delete.

Quote from: sebigboss79 on 29 April 2013, 12:25:16 PM
@Leon/Mods if that Link is not appropriate here please delete.

No worries, always good to learn new sources for stuff! 

The clippers we use ourselves are Zuron, which are from the States I believe.  They've got a slight offset where the blades meet, so instead of having to slice straight together and compact the metal, they're able to shear through instead and make the process easier on the hands (which is appreciated when you're clipping thousands of times a day!).  They're pretty durable as well, we replace them every 5 years or so I think.

  have to check those out as I experience immense "Schwarzeneggerism" when clipping. One can always have a third pair of clippers... 

Quote from: sebigboss79 on 29 April 2013, 05:49:01 PM
have to check those out as I experience immense "Schwarzeneggerism" when clipping. One can always have a third pair of clippers... 

I stock one of the Xuron types myself through Minibits, which use a similar shear method.  They're not the exact ones we use, as they've got a slightly shorter nose on them, but same method and slightly cheaper! 

http://www.minibits.net/TL8-p804/

Seen and taken a mental note. 


LOOK GW THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE SALES!!!!!

No the GW method is to bulk buy them, stick a skull or two on them plus their logo and charge 5 times the price.

If it was just 5 times no one would complain 

I think these maybe old metal stock that they are trying to pass off. I asked a chap I know who used to work at GW heres what he said

"The ones in the link are not plastic, they are the metal models from about 14 years ago.
The only plastic swordmasters are in the current starter set for WFB.
I suspect GW are trying to shift excess metal stock ahead of releasing a plastic kit, probably in a later wave of H/elf releases. Hopefully they've realised that simply chucking unwanted metal mini's into the skip after getting someone to whack them with a hammer so they aren't useable isn't very cost effective (yes, really, this is what was done with old stock returned to HQ when I worked there. Ask Jim).

The character dude with them is a new release plastic model.

£4.10 though for a godaweful swordmaster sculpted by Gary Morley in the mid 1990's is a bit bloody rich though, metal or not."