new years resolution
I have made my new year's resolution. I resolve never again to buy any miniatures from a Games Workshop store.
Why, you ask. I mean seriously, that's a good question. I have five armies that I could put together on a moments notice and another three that would require little work to get them going. And when I say armies, I mean ARMIES. Ask my wife. I could probably put together a 10,000 point space marine army without much problem. Hell, I've got about 3,000 points in Harlequins. I have so much damn lead, it's starting to look like a sign of psychosis. And yet, Games Workshop will not get another penny from my.
You see, today I went into a Game's Workshop store in order to buy a chaos obliterator. No, I don't have any. So, I wanted one. Actually, to tell you the truth, I want three like any good chaos commander would, but one would suffice. Now, I have not been buying the chaos obliterators for one simple reason--they cost $20 a piece. That's frickin' ridiculous.
But I recently got some money and I decided to treat myself to an obliterator. Now, keep in mind, these miniatures are made of lead. They're about an inch and a half tall. They don't come painted--you still have to do that. And yet, the damn things cost $20.
Oh wait, they raised the price. $25.
When I asked the store clerk why they had raised the price, he politely told me that because GW was competing with ebay prices, they had to raise their price. Yeah. So, because people can get their stuff for half price on the internet they've raised the price by 20%. That makes sense.
By the way, they also came out with a new rulebook. It cost $50 and contains three new rules. In the new rules, you have to choose a model with multiple wounds to take all the damage until it is dead. No more spreading all the shit around. Also, you must attack the nearest unit unless you can pass a LD check, though you may always choose to attack the nearest vehicle unit instead. Also, when you strike a unit with multiple toughnesses and/or armor saves, all characters are demoted to the lowest member of the squad. Those are the new rules. I just saved you $50.
My thought is this--GW is going out of business. There's no way they can stay in business coming out with a new rulebook every year for $50 and overcharging for their miniatures (I used to buy 3 rhinos for $30 dollars--it's now $40 for one). It's just bad busines considering that there are now a few sci-fi wargames out there that don't charge you an arm and a leg just to be their customer.
But I thought I might tell GW where they went wrong.
First of all, you should have never codified the space marines. One of your main problems is that people can go on the internet and find a painted marine that matches their army and buy it. If there were no standard colors, you wouldn't be having this problem. No one would want a red marine with yellow highlights, because they would be playing purple marines with silver highlights. Big mistake on your part. Look at the tyranids. No one buys painted tyranids on ebay. There's no standard colors and so there is no way someone has miniatures that match the color scheme of your army.
I know why you made this mistake. It was so that you could come out with certain miniatures that only the Blood Angels could use or something like that. You know that your blood angels players would be forced to buy the miniatures and you'd make a big profit (especially at a 200% mark up). Too bad that bit you in the ass.
Second off, you shouldn't have codified your vehicles. When 40k first came out, people would take a cool sci-fi vehicle and put it on the table and everybody would think that was great. Now, people tell you that since it isn't official, it can't be played. The problem is that most games are played at GW stores, and so, in order to play, you have to use the "official" vehicles.
For GW the problem is this, you can go on ebay, type in rhino and get all the rhinos they have for sale for $20 (rather than the store price of $40). If you had allowed people to scratch build and play vehicles, they couldn't reference so easilly on ebay. Plus they would be painted, and probably not fit in with people's army's color schemes. Thus, it would behoove them not to sell them. As it is now, people paint a rhino in ultra marine colors and ultra marine players can buy it. If scratchbuilt vehicles had been allowed, people would be trying to sell custom troop transport painted orange and blue. Who's going to buy that? But of course, you wanted everything that went on the 40k table to be something that you sold. Well, your game didn't start out that way and it was pretty successful.
Third, by raising your prices, you aren't competing with ebay, you're sending your remaining customers, like me to ebay.
Fourth and last, if you want to make money, don't fabricate changes. Your rules didn't change and so there is no reason to buy another book. But what does change is what the battle looks like every time. So, sell scenery. Make snow scenery and hive world scenery and battle zone scenery and jungle scenery. You want to keep making money from people who already have their armies that's how you do it. You guys even fucked that up though. Look at forge world. They want to charge you seventy dollars for something you can buy for 10 over at Armorcast. Ridiculous.
Ultimately though, I'll be kind of happy if you guys go out of business. What do you produce that's new. Nothing. You just produce the old stuff at higher cost. Plus, if you go out of business, I don't have to worry about a new rulebook or codex coming out telling me that the game I'm playing is obsolete.
In other words, Death to the false emperor! Death to Games Workshop!
Why, you ask. I mean seriously, that's a good question. I have five armies that I could put together on a moments notice and another three that would require little work to get them going. And when I say armies, I mean ARMIES. Ask my wife. I could probably put together a 10,000 point space marine army without much problem. Hell, I've got about 3,000 points in Harlequins. I have so much damn lead, it's starting to look like a sign of psychosis. And yet, Games Workshop will not get another penny from my.
You see, today I went into a Game's Workshop store in order to buy a chaos obliterator. No, I don't have any. So, I wanted one. Actually, to tell you the truth, I want three like any good chaos commander would, but one would suffice. Now, I have not been buying the chaos obliterators for one simple reason--they cost $20 a piece. That's frickin' ridiculous.
But I recently got some money and I decided to treat myself to an obliterator. Now, keep in mind, these miniatures are made of lead. They're about an inch and a half tall. They don't come painted--you still have to do that. And yet, the damn things cost $20.
Oh wait, they raised the price. $25.
When I asked the store clerk why they had raised the price, he politely told me that because GW was competing with ebay prices, they had to raise their price. Yeah. So, because people can get their stuff for half price on the internet they've raised the price by 20%. That makes sense.
By the way, they also came out with a new rulebook. It cost $50 and contains three new rules. In the new rules, you have to choose a model with multiple wounds to take all the damage until it is dead. No more spreading all the shit around. Also, you must attack the nearest unit unless you can pass a LD check, though you may always choose to attack the nearest vehicle unit instead. Also, when you strike a unit with multiple toughnesses and/or armor saves, all characters are demoted to the lowest member of the squad. Those are the new rules. I just saved you $50.
My thought is this--GW is going out of business. There's no way they can stay in business coming out with a new rulebook every year for $50 and overcharging for their miniatures (I used to buy 3 rhinos for $30 dollars--it's now $40 for one). It's just bad busines considering that there are now a few sci-fi wargames out there that don't charge you an arm and a leg just to be their customer.
But I thought I might tell GW where they went wrong.
First of all, you should have never codified the space marines. One of your main problems is that people can go on the internet and find a painted marine that matches their army and buy it. If there were no standard colors, you wouldn't be having this problem. No one would want a red marine with yellow highlights, because they would be playing purple marines with silver highlights. Big mistake on your part. Look at the tyranids. No one buys painted tyranids on ebay. There's no standard colors and so there is no way someone has miniatures that match the color scheme of your army.
I know why you made this mistake. It was so that you could come out with certain miniatures that only the Blood Angels could use or something like that. You know that your blood angels players would be forced to buy the miniatures and you'd make a big profit (especially at a 200% mark up). Too bad that bit you in the ass.
Second off, you shouldn't have codified your vehicles. When 40k first came out, people would take a cool sci-fi vehicle and put it on the table and everybody would think that was great. Now, people tell you that since it isn't official, it can't be played. The problem is that most games are played at GW stores, and so, in order to play, you have to use the "official" vehicles.
For GW the problem is this, you can go on ebay, type in rhino and get all the rhinos they have for sale for $20 (rather than the store price of $40). If you had allowed people to scratch build and play vehicles, they couldn't reference so easilly on ebay. Plus they would be painted, and probably not fit in with people's army's color schemes. Thus, it would behoove them not to sell them. As it is now, people paint a rhino in ultra marine colors and ultra marine players can buy it. If scratchbuilt vehicles had been allowed, people would be trying to sell custom troop transport painted orange and blue. Who's going to buy that? But of course, you wanted everything that went on the 40k table to be something that you sold. Well, your game didn't start out that way and it was pretty successful.
Third, by raising your prices, you aren't competing with ebay, you're sending your remaining customers, like me to ebay.
Fourth and last, if you want to make money, don't fabricate changes. Your rules didn't change and so there is no reason to buy another book. But what does change is what the battle looks like every time. So, sell scenery. Make snow scenery and hive world scenery and battle zone scenery and jungle scenery. You want to keep making money from people who already have their armies that's how you do it. You guys even fucked that up though. Look at forge world. They want to charge you seventy dollars for something you can buy for 10 over at Armorcast. Ridiculous.
Ultimately though, I'll be kind of happy if you guys go out of business. What do you produce that's new. Nothing. You just produce the old stuff at higher cost. Plus, if you go out of business, I don't have to worry about a new rulebook or codex coming out telling me that the game I'm playing is obsolete.
In other words, Death to the false emperor! Death to Games Workshop!
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
6:58 PM
1 Comments:
Agreed. But then I just ended up with four new miniatures for my Tyranid force from the great Warhammer gift god -- so I'm good for the next ten minutes or so. Frankly, the idea of buying a miniature is always a little sketchy for me. You should be able to just build it yourself. Or raid your backstash of cool stuff for things that kinda sorta look like what you want it to look like. Who says a Farseer doesn't look like Boba Fett? Or heaven forbid, you just gotta have the official kit you buy it on ebay from someone who already bought it and is now unloading it for 2/16ths of what they paid for it.
You will always be screwed by the high unholy Games Workshop. They have long since gotten out of this for the pure fun of gaming and are now looking for your bucks. Xerox doesn't sell copy machines -- they sell toner sponges. Any rule Game Bubby changes is for more bucks in their pockets. Any miniature they produce will be more expensive, have less parts, have less flexibility for customization, and will be crappier than the crappy crap version they used to produce that is exactly the same except it has less parts, cheaper plastic, and comes in a new box.
Then there's the personality of the usual sub-human who actually owns or works in dens that sell such items to the fools who wander in. They will not have what you want, will not have enough of what you want, and will overcharge you for the privledge of interupting their bitchfest against the universe long enough for them to insult you. Don't you just bet they went around and repriced the old miniatures with the new prices.
I got my friend addicted to this game just before Christmas and we went to a shop down in Los Angeles. He's starting up a Necron army and wanted to buy some Necron Wraiths. He found three on the peg -- one in the back priced 9 bucks. It obviously had been sitting there for a bit with just a little dust on it. Two newer Wraiths were sitting in front of it marked at 12 bucks. Exact same kit, same Wraith, same packaging. He wished to buy the one marked 9 bucks, and had to do a little "intense" discussion with the blob behind the cash register to pay the price actually marked. As we walked out, Blobbo was making his way toward the pegs with a price gun in hand.
So I'm with you bruddah. Stand fast against that new army of Chaos Harlequin who went over to the dark side and have new mutant powers. You don't need that adiction. Focus on your other vices. I myself have finally divested myself of the compulsion to buy the latest Franklin Mint Miniature Signature Natural Disaster Ceramic Toilet Topper Collection. Although the I hear the new Tornado plays "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."
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