QFT. In my local GW there has not been a new face in months, probably a year, and many usual customers have left. No new customers means no future. All the stores in my city (4 stores) seem to have the same problem.Originally Posted by Laughingmonk
QFT. In my local GW there has not been a new face in months, probably a year, and many usual customers have left. No new customers means no future. All the stores in my city (4 stores) seem to have the same problem.
We're a dying breed, you and I.
I was chatting with one of my mates I met through wargaming, about prices, attitudes etc, and we basically realised that whilst we both love gaming, its cheaper and easier to get a new game for the xbox and sit at home
I agree that tabletop games can't compete with video games on a value for gaming basis. But I don't agree that just slashing prices will all of a sudden save GW. No one knows about GW. They need a marketing/advertising plan as well as more attractive pricing.
I dont disagree with all of that, but I think its much more. Ignore the fact that stereotypically (nowadays anyway) tabletop is "geeky" whilst xbox gaming is mainstream, if not "cool", its just so, incredibly, easier to game online. Buy game, play. Games over in an hour or two. For wargaming, you have to buy, slowly paint up, and I dont know many kids who have the attention span for it, honestly. I'm 16, and I have no idea how I have the attention span to finish stuff, and I do small armies or skirmish games :S
I actually agree with all you've said. The potential pool of people who may start and stay with wargaming is less so than video games. But I also think video games did all they could to get people on their product. Much more so than wargaming. I personally don't even like minis as game pieces. When I want to play a battle game I play Europa Barbarorum or Starcraft. I like minis as modelling and collecting pieces. It's something that video games can't ever replace.
You are missing out other key ingredients to the gaming process...
READING.
You have to read a lot to play a table top miniature wargame.
This is a big stumbling block to the new generation of video kids who don't read half as much as we did a generation ago and the video games require very little reading before the action begins.
INTERACTION.
Kids who are shy or lack self esteem do not have to interact with other kids when they play video games online or otherwise. They do not have to deal with other personalities or make any effort to be personable. It doesn't involve being friendly or polite or making conversation. Video gaming is very isolationist. Tabletop gaming does require you to interact with an opponent and it also means preparing to a standard, so that you know enough of your rules to play the game without constantly referring to the rulebook which is a yaaaaawn for any opponent. You have to have your army based and painted with at least three colours to avoid the inevitable fun poking etc.
MONEY.
How much disposable income do you have to spend on the models?
If your parents are wealthy you can keep up with the GW pricing structure.
If your parents are not wealthy your army will only grow along a timeline of punctuated equilibrium as you encounter birthdays and Christmas events, with perhaps smaller occasional purchases from pocket money or from good behaviour.
My 13 year old has grown up in the video age and his reading ability and concentration skills are about half that of the average kid 30 years ago.
He cannot cope with reading a 40K rule book, let alone a codex, so warhammer is out of the question.
He shows a little interest in games like Space Hulk and Mantics Dungeon and I'm sure he could keep a little interest in the likes of Mordheim, but as it stands table top wargaming is way too hard when he makes the comparison to getting a new X-box 360 game.
It is a very difficult process to get kids into tabletop gaming where reading, interacting, numeracy, artistic ability and concentration are important, yet to play a new X-box game means almost instant gratification.
Not hard to see why console and PC gaming are so much more popular and lucrative.
So to sum up those points (which I agree with) GW target market should be the slightly older group of people rather than kids.
Although all those well thought out points don't really go through a 13 year old's head. They look at the pictures, maybe get shown an intro game, think its cool, buy a few things and go home. THEN they get bored and lose interest. By then, they have already bought a few things.
My 13 year old does play video games but he reads and writes just as much as the other kids and I'd frankly claim they read more now than we did. They just don't read the same things. I should point out that I and most of my son's friends parents all restrict video gaming and texting, which is necessary as they themselves are still learning proper time management. These kids have no problem reading a rule book. In fact they're great to have around because their memory is so good.
The problem with my son's friends playing a table top game is - 13 year old kids don't have the attention span to complete an army and most of them simply cannot afford it. In my experience kids do read a lot, just not classic literature because unlike us they're not stuck with just that to read. Which in a way is not good but in another it means they're taking advantage of more options available to them. That isn't to imply they don't read some good stuff. I was an avid reader when I was a kid. I remember being about the only kid who had read the "Lord of the Rings" at 13. My son and almost all his friends have read at least one volume from "Lord of the Rings". And they're not all geeks who would be naturally inclined to read that.
I think strewart brings up a fair point (as did Autumn Leaves - excellent post!). Today's children are customed towards binge buying, and GW seems to excessively build on that. The thought about having to read (and buy) a 300-500 pages book, plus lots of other stuff doesn't matter for them because it will not occur. They see men in shiny armour riding giant wolves and when they think they're cool, they'll buy them. They are not the customer who buy Finecast and get a replacement if its faulty, it is far more likely that they just throw it into some corner.
I have to say that I find it hardly comprehensible how they came to their strategy of targetting kids. Tabletop is a much more long-time customer-producer relationship, with all the new releases and the overall involvement and investment of time needed. The interaction between staff and customer could be used to produce much more dense relationships.
Compared to for example video games where the customer-producer relationship is much less intense (for the majority) and "binge buying" would actually make sense it is hardly executed, or at least not as aggressively as GW seems to do.
This is not a criticism (at least not primarily), but it just bothers and confused me time and time again.
Look upon us and Despair, for we are the End, the Decay of all things, the horror of rot and the blessing of plague.
Amazing post, I agree with everything said, that is indeed the core of the problem. We live in the technological age of consumerism, "I want it now, I want it here and it must entertain me".
The death of concentration through over-stimulation. Of course as also pointed out by General Veers, not every child will conform to these standards, but those will be in the minority.
On a more positive note, the local clubs near me have in fact had a bit of an influx of younger teenagers and kids willing to partake in the hobby. In fact one of the two I go to is primarily made up of younger kids sometimes barely half my age. The local gaming stores I dont know about, I havn't been to one for years and last time I did go it was all regular faces.
A boy played in the sandbox with no one to mind him,
When quietly a mixing truck pulled up behind him.
He peeped not a peep, cried out nary a cry —
Just his sandals stuck out when the concrete was dry.
Hi there,
To be or not to be? That is the question. 400 years later there is an even more curious question on my mind...
Why are Stormvermin £30 for twenty models...??
Seriously.
Why not £25 for 10 like all "elite" infantry?? Or even make them £15 for ten... it just seems so random in the price list of things. Was is an attempt to test the waters and see of a 20 infantry unit for £30 sells better than 10 guys for £15. I just dont see the logic behind it.
I can here people shouting "..because Skaven are a horde army and they need big units!!1!"
Well there are numerous horde armies and in 8th editon most armies can be *made* into a horde army technically - If that was the thinking behind it then why not make Skaven clanrats £40 for forty or £30 for thirty even??
Can some elighten me please?
Many thanks.
Nate.
I suspected they didn't think they could get away with £25 for 10, but wanted to charge a premium on Clanrats. Because they can. Also, they are gorgeous models. With the size of Skaven models, perhaps they felt that having twenty in the box was more space efficient (in terms of shipping and shelf placement) then boxes of 10 and given that most will want more models anyway, it makes sense.
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You still lose out anyway because 20 are nowhere near big enough to be worth fielding as a unit. Fortunately, my second box I nabbed at a 30% discount (local game store clearing out of GW stuff). I'm now patiently building the two kits together.
They're such awesome models.
This really should be in the pricing feedback in general, but to quickly answer the question.... GW will charge whatever people will pay. The only way they will reduce prices is if noone buys at the price they set, ergo,, if you want it cheaper, don't buy it.
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
I'm not saying I dont like the price - infact it has very little to do with the price - i'm talking about the disparancy between the kits - I thought the plastic kits were £15 for 10 or £25 for 10. I'm not saying its good or bad. It's not about value for money.
Why are Empire core troops not £30 for 20...
As I asked, were the stormvermin a test for larger boxes (maybe thinking of 8th?) I dont know.
Again this is not about value or slagging gw off there are a million other threads for that: it's about exactly what i'm asking.
Cheers for any help.
Nate.
Another fine example of someone scanning the OP for about two seconds before posting a reply based on an assumption. It takes at least 30-40 seconds to post, why not spend five to ten more actually reading the text and making sure you don't appear like a fool?
Sorry, this one was just one such post too far, and the annoyance has been mounting up over the years (especially in my own threads).
But yes, on the topic, it is probably simply because they don't figure it's worth their while to change the Stormvermin at this point, simply enough. They were released as 20 before and will only change by the time of the next AB, I presume.
I never claimed you didn't like the price. You are talking about pricing (regardless of the point of the question) and so in the pricing discussion thread this should be - and how about that...
Ummmm... they are...
If you are asking why the stormvermin are packaged as a box of 20, and not as a box of 10 as most other troops (although DEs, Dwarfs and HEs also have different box sizes as well, so Stormvermin are nothing special in this regard) then I would assume it is simply for the ease of building a horde army (which skaven are) and that's about it.
Follow your own adviceAs stated above, if you had bothered to read anything I wrote - the OP is asking why they charge £X for X models - they do it because they can.
So you agree - they do it because they can. Stunningly this has ended up in the pricing thread - how about that
Last edited by shelfunit.; 18-03-2012 at 11:14.
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
It's true GW will charge what they want to charge and anybody who has a problem with this will be directed to their profit margin.So you agree - they do it because they can. Stunningly this has ended up in the pricing thread - how about that
Dont expect any changes in target marketing the kids or any kind of reprieve in yearly price hikes, or any chance of annual retail store over stock sales returning until the profit margin turns red.
Even then it may take a while.
I think it's best not to try and logic out GWs sales strategies, most of them are gobbledygook anyway, but generally cheap units of smaller-stature models that will commonly be fielded as hordes (goblin and skaven infantry, gnoblars etc) are sold as packs of 20 rather than 10. I understand that's not going to be much consolation to you if your looking to field a unit of 50.Hi there,
To be or not to be? That is the question. 400 years later there is an even more curious question on my mind...
Why are Stormvermin £30 for twenty models...??
Seriously.
Why not £25 for 10 like all "elite" infantry?? Or even make them £15 for ten... it just seems so random in the price list of things. Was is an attempt to test the waters and see of a 20 infantry unit for £30 sells better than 10 guys for £15. I just dont see the logic behind it.
I can here people shouting "..because Skaven are a horde army and they need big units!!1!"
Well there are numerous horde armies and in 8th editon most armies can be *made* into a horde army technically - If that was the thinking behind it then why not make Skaven clanrats £40 for forty or £30 for thirty even??
Can some elighten me please?
Many thanks.
Nate.
Look on the bright side, you could be paying £25 for 10 like I am with my tomb guard
any argument to say that they're thinking of us by turning metal to resin is as convincing as a frenzied Khorne worshipper covered in blood, still chomping on a victim, with a Khorne sigil tattooed to his forhead pleading a case of mistaken identity when questioned about a murder.
Stormvermin avoid "gold" pricing by being a Core choice. GW has apparently not hit the point of insanity where a core building block of a 20mm based army should be over $4/model (in before someone states an example of an army (other than DoW or Chaos Dwarfs) where the core 20mm troop is over $4/model).
Flagellants for the Empire avoid the same pricing standard by being able to take a unit as Core in every army with a Warrior Priest...at least, that's my best guess as to why they don't cost the same ludicrous price as Greatswords.
I'd keep an eye out on the Skaven special choices during their next update...
...and a little help comes in a little glass vial in a gun pressed against her anatomy...
You can always file off your nipples, it's easily done.
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