9 Parts. There is the backpack as well.Not to sound overly picky, but a Space Marine has 8 parts not 6, which takes even longer. Legs, torso, head, 2 arms, 2 shoulder pads, gun.
A 40k warband game would be great and give the kids a chance to play games with their couple of squads.
As long as we're nit–picking, the torso is in two parts. So 10 for a standard tac marine.Originally Posted by Venkh
“There's a hole in the world. Feels like we ought to have known.”
Haha well got there eventually. I had a feeling even 8 was a bit low. 10 piece 28mm models is a fair bit of work for someone with no modelling experience. I wonder how many don't realise the number of pieces and work involved before they buy their first set.
The basic warmachine prices are almost as high nowadays though. It is much cheaper overall, but the mom isn't going to know that.Kid then looks online for wargaming minis, and finds Warmachine.
Most likely she'll buy him a ps3 or 360 game, those haven't had a price rise in almost 10 years and the hidden DLC costs of some games are miniscule compared to how much he'd need to play WH or WM.
The bigger wonder here is will Warmachine make a breakout hit video game before GW ever does. If they do that and put in an advertisement for their minis with the game, that could change things dramatically.
The case I'm talking about is one I've seen happen.
The kid was 13, and pretty net savvy, so he looked around and checked out what WM consisted of - small skirmish forces and huge stompy jacks really appealed to him.
Those who know don't care any more, and those who care don't know.
The thing is with games like Warmachine, Malifuax & Dystopian Wars is that you can start playing balanced fun games just from buying the starter & a rule book. So mom buy one of these sets and maybe a rulebook and sees her kid having fun straight away.
Where as little Timmy is going to be pestering mom to keep buying him more & more 40k or WHFB stuff just so that he will have enough minis to play a 1000 or 1500 point game.
The 5 Rules of Page 5 - MKII
1) Thou Shalt Not Whine
2) Come Heavy Or Don't Come At All
3) Give As Good As You Get
4) Win Graciously And Lose Valiantly
5) Page 5 Is Not An Excuse
I know there are some creepy looking people who like to hang around GW stores, but I didn't know any of them followed kids home and spied on them too...
They can go back to what made them grow from a small UK only company to a global concern. From 1988-1997, they had the largest % growth ever. LotR brought in a lot of cash, but it fundamentally didn't support long term growth-- it was indeed a bubble.
So what were their products like from 1988-1997? Lower model count. Everything you put in your army felt important. The complete package for a gamer was 20-40 miniatures and a few vehicle kits.
You may notice when you look at Privateer (who is still growing rapidly) that their current flagship product (Warmachine) requires this type of model count and the rules are designed to make every purchase valuable in game terms.
Jervis has said that two thirds of their customers never actually play their game. They call them "craft hobbyists" and see them as their core market. As if having two thirds of your customers not bothering with your rules is a sign of success. It's a sign of abject failure when it comes to game design.
They need a ground up revamp. And instead of hiring people and bringing them into the existing culture of GW corporate, they should slash their own department and headhunt a new team that has a proven track record when it comes to overall play experience. Or outsource their 40k & WFB game design completely. Fantasy Flight might be a good place to go. They actually know about game design in terms of actual play experience.
The other thing they did during their years of greatest growth was to use distribution models other than their own retail stores and direct sales. They should separate out their retail arm as a separate division and track it's success separately. Their manufacturing division should go back to all the distributors and apologize and try to get carried again.
So:
1) Newer version of 40k that prioritizes solid game play at the 20-40 miniature range and never, ever actively devalues miniatures.
2) Separate retail and manufacturing so they can address the problems with each rather than getting muddled.
3) Re-court distributors and independent stockists. Go to trade shows and get their new game experience focused version of 40k as widely talked about as possible.
I think that this point, the prices wouldn't seem so bad.
Last edited by frozenwastes; 01-12-2011 at 09:09.
So selling less models will make them healthier?
Yes, that's how they are working right now, through price increases. And it doesn't seem to work quite well......
A mangler squig sized model should be $35 au/us tops. The doombull should be the same.
Personally, I don't want to see the company saved unless it involves massive price cuts. "Saving" them without that will just mean giving them a way to continue with the absurd prices.
My own objections have little to do with what you need to play a game (though that is still a factor in general, I accept), it's that I'm not willing to pay double or triple the price from 10 years ago for an unchanged model, especially knowing that the price will only continue to rise.
Last edited by Tymell; 01-12-2011 at 13:17.
When did GW release something? Was it plastic or metal? Who sculpted it? Come find out:Fantasy, 40K, LOTR, BFG, Blood Bowl, Epic, Inquisitor, Man O' War, Mordheim, Necromunda & Warmaster
What frozenwastes has written is not about selling less models, except on an individual level.
Instead of trying to sell 100+ minis to one person that approach would be trying to instead sell, say, 30 minis each to five people.
I can see that working because of the relatively easy and cheap entry (at least compared to what it is now).
You'd get a larger player base, a lower threshold for branching out into a second/third/... army and ideally better word of mouth advertising because of a drastically increased perceived value.
EmperorNorton's Overabundance of Projects Log
2012
Minis bought: 363 - - - - - Minis painted: 373
2013
Minis bought: 407 - - - - - Minis painted: 66
Not to sound overly picky but a basic Tactical Space Marine comes in 10 parts minimum. Legs, torso (in two parts, front and back), head, 2 arms, 2 shoulder pads, backpack and gun. Then there are all the additional extras of course
Last edited by Inquisitor Kallus; 01-12-2011 at 14:25.
Angron's hobbies include crochet and flower pressing - but he does them with barbed wire and his face, respectively.
How does it stay in the air? Oh, it's powered by pure handwavium
Quick, let me take my (Mat) Ward save!
Yeah I think the argument is that by making the game more monetarily accessible as well as less daunting, they should thus increase their custom.
If that doesn't work then they lose money obviously, but the current games especially the 500pg monstrosity of WFB plus their 3000pt average game size is just so expensive and intimidating that anyone starting to collect will give up within the apparent 18 month window GW claims their customers normally spend in. I doubt the majority of their customers actually end up playing a proper game because they give up before spending enough to have a full army.
Of course GW probably can't really afford to shift to this kind of strategy because their current business model is designed around a huge infrastructure that they have to keep supporting.
However, if they released a mini battles game within the current range that they specifically targetted at new players whilst still supporting the current games they could do both. Game rules designed to play at 2nd ed scales with faster rules. That way a new customer could feel like their minis are actually worth something and play proper games, rather than half a game like any current 1000pt or less game is. The current design paradigm makes it really hard to play a balanced game at such tiny points costs due to unit interdependence and special rules/exceptions.
A game specifically designed at that scale would feel like a full game and allow the kids to get hooked. As they get more models they can then graduate to 40k. This becomes a tiered approach, rather than an all or nothing one.
IMO the current 40k is basically the 2nd ed Apocalypse expansion - play with all the models you have in a bigger streamlined game (although that last bit is debatable).
GW however are so paranoid about cannabalistic sales (except strangely when it comes to inventing a new marine army) that they won't release a mini 40k game for fear all their players will stop spending money because they don't 'need' to...
Hellebore
"Humanity's Insignificance pales in comparison to its Ego." (Sir Rumplestiltskin)
"The capacity to think does not assign importance to your thoughts, it merely indicates you can." (Sir Rumplestiltskin)
Haha, nawww. My boss's boss is the mother in question. Every time she says "Can I please speak to you?" it's always about a geek-related topic on behalf of her son. I joke that she should start a support group called MOGS: Mothers of Geeks
Those who know don't care any more, and those who care don't know.
No, an approach concentrating on the game experience at all model count levels will make them healthier.
Right now the rules are just an idea. They use the idea to sell people on the hobby. But the idea is one that two thirds of their customers never actualize into playing the game.
A lower model count makes the complete package more accessible. It worked for GW in the 90s when they become an international company and it's working for Privateer now. In the end, it's about making the models feel valuable and giving people an experience of the full game.
40k needs to be gutted and reworked from the ground up. The longer they do the "rules as an idea that the majority of our customers will never reach" approach, their sales will drop. Then they'll raise prices to compensate, which will make the full sized army even less reachable for new players. So their sales will drop. They've been in this viscous cycle of declining player base and unit sales since the LotR days.
GW's approach has been to make the models they sell less and less valuable through the use of their rules set. Instead, they should use the idea that you can play a game with them to *increase* their value. Instead of constantly lowering points costs and increasing the points size of standard games, they should be working on delivering a satisfying gaming experience at all levels of play and *especially* at lower model counts.
The prices wouldn't seem that bad if the idea that they use to sell them was actually a good one.
Pretty much this.
Someone walks into a GW store. They have a demo game. They get sold on the idea of the game. They buy maybe a starter, or maybe a battleforce and codex. Or maybe a codex, a troop choice box and some paints.
The idea of the full game has been put into their head, but it's unreachable for the majority of their customers. Instead of realizing this is a problem, GW tells themselves that two thirds of their customers are "craft hobbyists" and thus they don't need a game worth playing, only one that satisfies their need for an idea in the sales process.
The problem is that playing a game experience focused design that's meant to make your models feel valuable is going to make switching over to current 40k seem like a step in the wrong direction.A game specifically designed at that scale would feel like a full game and allow the kids to get hooked. As they get more models they can then graduate to 40k. This becomes a tiered approach, rather than an all or nothing one.
They're not going to consider revamping their products from a customer experience viewpoint until they have no choice, and by then it might be too late. The current GW management is planning for their retirement, not the company's future. They're going to all retire super rich no matter if GW fails or succeeds. Every time GW screws up, they issue themselves stock options at the low and then exercise them just in time for a dividend. All the while the majority of the shares are held by an institutional investor who apparently doesn't care what GW does.
GW is not going to change.
Expect more price hikes, more poor game design and more baffling corporate decision making.
How on earth do you come to the conclusion that because some people purely collect models that 'It's a sign of abject failure when it comes to game design.'
Some people are just not interested in playing games with toy soldiers, although they may be interested in the aesthetics, painting or modelling. That is in no way a bad thing, in fact almost the opposite. I know a decent amount of 'hobbyists' who don't play but have large collections, people who love the background and only read the books and so on. The game itself just doesn't appeal to them for whatever reason, not necessarily due to bad game design.
Angron's hobbies include crochet and flower pressing - but he does them with barbed wire and his face, respectively.
How does it stay in the air? Oh, it's powered by pure handwavium
Quick, let me take my (Mat) Ward save!
If some of your customers have no interest in your game, that's natural. Different people have different interests.
If 2/3 of your customers have no interest in your game, then it implies you may have some sort of functional flaw in the game itself, since the game used to be the mechanism used to sell miniatures. (Originally, even though they weren't perfect, GW's games were interesting enough to draw a lot of people into buying way more miniatures than they would have before. For example, as a D&D player, I would only need a handful of elves for our games. But when I started playing Warhammer, I bought a few hundred.)
The games were there as an excuse to drive miniatures sales, but they were initially at least somewhat appealing to many of the customers. GW started to focus on "we only make games to sell miniatures" and moved the tipping point of that idea further and further towards the sales. When you get too far along, and raise prices too high, instead of maximizing your sales by maximizing profit/customer, you start losing customers.
("If we make a game that takes 30 miniatures to play, we could increase our sales by 20% just by making it take 35. Hey...if we can get each player to buy 35, maybe we can get them to buy 45. And maybe 70 and why not 200?") At some point, they lost track of the fact that you need to have a buy-in amount that needs to be comfortable. And their game is no longer an attractive way to lure people into playing.
Meanwhile, plenty of other companies are writing great games that are luring in more and more customers.
The Games Workshop sales pitch starts with a demo game. It starts by getting people in with the idea that there's a game to be played. Heck, it's right in the name of the company selling the product.
The fact that two thirds of the people from there never play the game again is sadly quite telling about the issues with the game and how you can't get a full experience of the game until you have a huge collection.
It's a failure of game design in that GW is selling people a product which includes a game and the majority of their customers don't use that portion of the product. It's a failure in game design in that the barrier to fully participate in the playing of the game is just too great for the majority of their customers.
It's GW's belief (and Inquisitor Kallus' I'm guessing) that two thirds of their customers don't play their games because they're fundamentally not interested in using their miniatures in a game at all. But if that's the case, why is the demo sales process all about putting the idea of a game into their heads?
I think it's far, far more likely that the majority of GW's customers don't play their games because there is something wrong with the rules. Specifically I think the barrier to entry is so great that GW loses the person as a customer long before their collection gets large enough to play the game at it's full size.
Last edited by frozenwastes; 01-12-2011 at 16:17.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
New Cult King