Slashdot Mirror
Games Workshop Tries to Crack Down on Internet Sales
heirodule writes "In this messageboard posting internet retailer The warstore says he was contacted by Games Workshop, maker of miniature wargames such as Warhammer 40,000 and the Lord of the Rings Battle Game. GW will be refusing to distribute their product to retailers who sell over the internet after July 1. That's bad enough, but they cited the problem of IP violations (like people posting pictures of their products?) as part of the rationale. The claim is that for GW, this has nothing to do with internet sales offering discounts (yeah, right) but with the 'experience' that GW wants customers to have (of coming into their own stores and getting a hard sell)." The nearest Game Workshop store to me is a 1 hour, 10 minute drive, according to their store locator. The Usenet thread may be of interest.
GW will find out the hard way that people will not buy what they can not access. There are no GW shops where I live and probably never will be. The only options I have is to either buy on-line or have a friend shop for me, provided I have a friend near a GW shop.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
How do these places stay in business? The one near me (about 1 mile if it's any comfort) is in a mall with rather onerous rent. There is a comic book store a few miles away that seems to have the lock on geeks wanting to play games. But how do you pay mall rent by selling a a couple of miniatures? Is there really that much money in these things?
This sort of move (and I haven't read the article, so bite me if I base this solely on the blurb here:) is the 'head stuck in the sand' method that we lambast the RIAA and MPAA, among others, for. I see two possible rationalizations. First, Games Workshop needs to keep paying those mall/strip center rents. Second, they plan on selling online and don't want the competition.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I can remember when wargamers had a slew of options for what game to play. Now FASA is gone and after this little announcement I think WG will fall soon. I love those little miniatures, getting attached to them while painting makes there survivalin the game that much more important... but now I wonder if there will ever be another reason to drag them out and get a game going. Tabletop wargaming was awesome but I doubt I will ever get to play unless I go to GENCON. Thats sad...
Fnord.sig
Well they could if the GW site wasn't so ungodly slow and poorly laid out. I went to show my son the sort of thing I was into when I was a kid and just gave up.
The GW thing is kinda depressing. You'd think that after 17, 18 years there'd be a lot of new content, different miniatures, etc. but I've looked and seen the same figures, just fewer to a pack and more expensive. Note to the pedants: Obviously, there ARE new figures. I just expected to see something completely different.
Things were getting "too corporate" when I stopped being interested in the miniatures and games years ago, when the stores went from being the kind of creepy dives staffed by weirdoes who would rather I just leave so I didn't interrupt their game to the modern spartan things staffed by perky people who wanted to sell me stuff.
So this latest behaviour isn't surprising at all. They want it ALL.
GW used to be a much different organization. As they became bigger and bigger, it seems like they really lost touch with the gamers, and they kept targetting a younger and younger crowd. I mean, if you can, get your hands on a copy of "Rogue Trader" -- and then compare the feel of the rules to the ones from the latest edition of WH40k. They've added more models, and yeah, they're better models, but it feels like they've surrounded them in a web of dense, arbitrary rules.
I suppose that's necessary, for the climate of gaming nowadays. It's much more important to win than to play, which it didn't feel like when I first got into WH/WH40k oh-so-long ago.
Well, anyway, this doesn't surprise me. TSR went through a phase like this, before WotC bought them out. Remember when all the online D&D supplements were curiously void of any actual references to D&D? I think GW is making that same transition -- from a company made of gamers to a company selling to gamers.
Actually it isn't. GW's target audience is no longer who it once was. GW sells a huge amount of product to the 12-and-under crowd, especially in the UK. They really don't like catering to demanding nerds, and prefer a more malleable audience with deep-pockets parents.
I think you nailed it right there. I work for a company (who shall remain nameless) who simply loves our online store simply because its all gravy to them. They don't have to pay off reps or dealers. All of the money goes to them.
;)
IMHO, I bet these guys are hurting financially and they are trying to make their website de facto place so they can maximize sales and pour on the gravy.
Just a thought. Correct me if I'm wrong (not that Slashdot would ever do that
Intellectual property protection by not allowing someone to sell a paper book or metal miniatures online? Bwah?
Complete and total lunacy. Howling at the moon. I know Game Workshop has been setting their lawyers loose on people posting PDFs of their books online, and I can certainly understand that, but this is just plain crazy. Saying no one but you can sell on the Internet is a sure way to drive the people who sell your products into the grave. If Games Workshop gets hurt by this (stores just stopping selling GW products) maybe it won't get too far, but I doubt it. If I ran a hobby shop selling Games Workshop material, I'd probably just start closing down, selling off all my stock cheap, and get into a stable, sane industry. Once Games Workshop gets away with it, Wizards, Wizkids, and White Wolf will too, and then no hobby store worth patronizing will be able to have any kind of Internet presence other than "we are located here" with a poorly drawn dragon on their logo. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope GW gets slapped hard, but I doubt it. Their stuff is too popular.
Way to try and turn back the clock on an entire industry.
What GW is probably trying to do is protect their resellers' profit margins.
For instance, what a lot of people do is talk to the local guy, use up all his time and ideas, and then buy online from someone who is cheaper because they don't spend all day helping customers and providing a value-add. Therefore, you see the people who were providing all the quality customer service go out of business because they can't spend all that time helping people and compete with the low price guys. The same thing is in retail computer space, that's why the level of customer service is so abysmal IMHO. People would go pick the brains of the people who would spend time with them, and then go and order online or from some cheap guy that doesn't help them.
So, this makes it so that the stores which ostensibly put in the effort to educate customers and generate sales get crushed and the stores that add no value do well... BUT once the stores that provided the value go away, then you tend to get the whole manufacturer's sales go down because no one is helping the customers. You'll get some guys that will keep buying, but you'll not get many new customers.
THere are exceptions to this, and it sounds like they do need more resellers if their nearest one is over an hour away for someone, but they probably do have channel management reasons for wanting to make all their people compete evenly.
they rip off the local dealer as well with huge quotas, large minimums, no discounting, etc. as if its some privledge in and of itself to have their products.
then enter their own local gw stores which dont have to deal with any of that.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
eBay
Bet you can find any of the pieces on there. Let's see them try to stop every Tom, Dick, and Harry from selling their pieces.
- Joe
Basically, GW considers themselves to be an entire hobby, rather than being a part of the hobby of minatures gaming. They'd prefer it if people didn't even have a chance to use them as a "gateway drug" for minatures games from other companies.
Think of Microsoft times ten. Imagine if it wasn't just file formats in Office and site licensing that requires paying for Windows based on the number of PCs and Macs at a site. Imagine if they required stores to stock mostly Microsoft stuff, and to stock the entire Microsoft "hobby" line.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
This is one of the most colossally stupid business decisions I have ever heard of. Miniature gaming is an *extremely* niche market with alot of competition. Cutting off any market share at all just makes no sense whatsoever. Yes I understand that you can still get it online through their website, but it's still remarkably limiting.
.02
I can't imagine where other game companies, like Mayfair, WOC, etc... would be if they forced you to buy from brick and mortar stores. I live in Chicago, and finding the exact game product you might be looking for at the time isn't always easy. To restrict access to your product (a product that only a few 1000 people may be purchasing at any one time) is just plain dumb.
just me
jeff
It sounds like GW is trying to increase profits and push their retailers by using the philosophy that their games are popular, thus people will buy them, so they should have to pay full price. In short, the product sells itself and they can charge whatever they want. I've noticed other companies (*cough*Wizards of the Coast*cough*) trying to do the same thing.
By comparison, other game companies are taking the exact opposite approach: they encourage local retailers to stock what they can, no requirements about "you must take such-and-such to get such-and-such" and simply let the market decide. They actively go out and promote communities around their games and gaming in general. They tend to devote a lot of time to the community. From what I can tell, Kenzer & Co. is one of the best examples out there (they publish the comic Knights of the Dinner Table, as well as Hackmaster, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Fairy Meat and Dwarven Dig.) Their message boards are literally the heart of their community, but the neat thing is that the major names all participate in the discussions. More to the point, the major names even take part in the esoteric discussions of favorite B-movies. Heck, the other day, Gary Gygax popped in and briefly talked about a stuffed koala he used to own!! When discussing the games and the rules, etc, they give the distinct impression that player feedback matters.
The result of this is that they've fostered a fanatically loyal fan base who voluntarily spend money on products to ensure that the company stays afloat. GW would do well to foster that kind of relationship with their fans.
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Something cleverSeriously.
Little plastic or metal figurines. Once the original has been designed, you just churn them out by the millions. Most are just derivations of older designs anyway.
So why do these things cost C$30-C$50 each??!!
Unpainted.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I would imagine because Apple has traditionally tried to monopolize the production of their product. If you want a Mac, you have to buy the computer from Apple. If you want a Windows machine, you can buy from Dell, Gateway (ugh), etc, or make it yourself. It would seem that GW thinks that by forcing people to come into their stores to buy their products, they will be able to sucker them into buying more than they need. I bet they just lose more customers than they gain.
Microsoft please hi
Isn't it similar type of thinking (different actions and time) that caused TSR so much trouble. Produce dervitive products, rarely innovate, deal with not very good business partners, no major marketing effort( as in TV, or Newspapers, target sci-fi shows and college newspapers), failing to reach new customers. If GW wants to see what not to do, TSR from a few years ago would be ripe with examples.
Capitalism: unequal distribution of wealth
Socialism: equal distribution of poverty
In the United States if you demand that a retailer sell something at a certain price, or you try to force the issue, you can go to jail.
That's why it called the manufactureres Suggested Retail Price or MSRP. GW is the manufacturer, they sell to distributers who sell to retailers, who sell to the public.
The problem is that GW doesn't like the fact that the mini's they make for $.25 and are sold to the distributer for $2.00 are being sold by internet retailers for $2.25 +S/H. Becuase at a GW owned store and at most Brick and Mortor stores, they go for $6.00.
Ted Tschopp
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
Because if I were an indie store owner I'd be pushing Clix like a fiend after being treated like this.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
GW wants to ban ALL 3rd party internet vendors and do it themselves--they want the WHOLE pie to themselves. Perhaps they are trying to become "vertically integrated" (ie. greedy bastards). Theoretically, making, distributing, marketing and selling a product through one big company is supposed to reduce risk of IP theft, possibility of other entities that you depend on going under and so on.
However in todays economy (fast moving, information based, global) "vertical integration" is ineffective and obsolete except in the case of VERY big corporations like GM--and even they outsource (if there is a problem with the outsource, they have enough pull to affect their management or pull out, or even take them over). The "razor blade" theory is also becoming so much bunk too (giving away whe razor and ripping us off on the blades).
In the computer industry I can think of examples where the tactics GW used completely backfired. MITS created the PC industry with the Altair--they were the only player in the game, but success very quickly brough competitors (Proc Tech, IMSAI, Cromemco, Apple, Commodore, Tandy...). MITS tried to aggessivley protect their IP (namely the bus which became known as the S100 bus--competitors started making peripheral cards for it and soon make S100 PCs of their own). Not only was MITS uncooperative with 3rd party vendors--they went as far as to threaten lawsuit. On the sales and marketing side, MITS attempted to make all their dealers exclusive MITS dealers--but soon most broke off that deal as IMSAI (and later Apple) gave them sweeter deals and didn't demand exclusivity.
GW is doing this now. They are vigourously defending their "IP" to the point of crippling their marketing (they don't even want people to put up pictures on their websites---turning their nose up at free advertising!). Furthermore, hey are trying to control everything--they want to have the only website and a bunch of stores with nothing but their own product. Like MITS, GW isn't exactly a high profile company. Also like MITS, their product could be duplicated relatively easily (not cloned mind you, but if GW alientates customers work-alike products will fill the void). GW could be like MITS in a third way in 2 or 3 years--completely gone.
This vertical strategy only stands a good chance of working if you have BIG resources and can take BIG risks. Even Texas Instruments failed with the TI99/4a. From the start they employed a vertical strategy (along with the "razorblade" strategy when sales were slow). Before TI discontinued the machine, they controled manufacturing (the thing was loaded wil all TI chips---CPU, VDP, memory, logic), distribution and sales (making it a bit more difficult to find than say a Commodore, Atari or Apple) and software/peripheral/accessories (they figured they could sell the computer for much less than it cost to make and hose customers on software and hardware accessories--the 3rd party TI market was basically non-existent). TI couldn't pull it off and lost millions. Ironically, in the couple of years AFTER TI pulled out of the market, a small 3rd party industry blossomed around the TI.
If a giant like TI couldn't pull it off, how can a specialty shop like GW handle the whole pie?
are you joking?
For decades people have played without "OFFICIAL WARHAMMER RULES AND RESULTS TABLES" I learned wargaming from an "open" book written in the fifties that had a complete and very workable gaming system. When I saw Warhammer in the local Waldenbooks, I had to laugh. Even the AD&D miniatures rules are better (more playable *and* realistic) than Warhammer.
Granted, the old system didn't have rules for what *one person* considered a blue orc's resistence bonus to ice magic (as opposed to a green orc's resistence to fire magic?), so you had to extropolate from say, a Roman legion's advantage against routing, or temporary morale bonus for a Germanic berzerker charge. Even better, it showed you how to devise your own rules and modification to suit *your* game scenario.
For that matter, why not scraps of paper?
Mechanics reasons:
Most wargames rulesets have a large number of options. My personal favorite of the GW games, Necromunda, is based around gangs armed with a very wide range of weapons and sci-fi equipment. Tokens to cover all these wouldn't make a lot of sense and there'd have to be piles. GW and others borrowed the term WYSIWYG to, in their case, refer to miniatures that show the proper options.
Also, some games use very specific base sizes and similar mechanics, even basing things of the physical nature of the mini. Miniatures games generally don't use a strict grid for movement.
Aesthetics reasons:
it looks cooler. Playing with tiny representations of troops does, actually, give it some more 'dignity' than moving chits around, which makes it more game-like. WHy does StarCraft use animations instead of juct rectangles labled to represent units?
Apple has shut down potentially profitable business plans (such as the clone plan). GW is doing something similar, only with sales channels instead of licensed clones. IOW, GW is shooting themselves in the foot just like Apple did.
So Apple not liscensing their proprietary technology to other companies so that they could make Apple compatible computers is in your mind just like GW refusing to allow online retailers to sell GW products? Huh? There's only two things that I can think of that would make this situation like Apple's:
1) Apple could stop all retailers other than the online Apple Store from selling Apple products. That isn't true at all.
2) GW could be trying to stop the manufacture of products "compatible" with their own products. Not only is that not the case, it still wouldn't make them much like Apple, because Apple is simply not liscensing some proprietary tech to other companies, while there's nothing proprietary necessay to make minatures.
GW is no more like Apple for not liscensing their tech than it is like Microsoft for not liscensing the internals of WindowsXP to anyone who wants to make a compatible operating system.
Whatever dude. Maybe GW really believes that, in which case I say "WAKE UP!! YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE PISSED!".
Microsoft can be a monopoly all they want, as long as their product isn't CRAP. Make a good product and the world will come to you and it's all good.
Now, becoming number one by shifty business practices and gouging your customers, that is certainly not right.
Anything is possible given time and money.
If GW go bust, it'll do the RPG industry a world of good.
They decimate local gaming scenes when they open a store. The independant retailers in the area can't compete on price and also suddenly have enormous difficulty getting GW products which were till then profitable lines for them, they fairly quickly go out of business. Then the product lines available in the GW stores become very very limited and rather expensive.
The independant retailers weren't just shops, they were enthusiasts as well, hosting gaming evenings and with wide choice of rpg products from many companies small and large.
If GW want to commit financial suicide, I'll do everything I can to help them.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Several years ago (I cannot remember the exact date), Wizards of the Coast made a decree that their products could only be sold by businesses that actually maintained a real "brick and mortar" store. (You could still sell them on the internet, but only if you also sold them over the counter at your real live storefront).
A great cry arose, because up until that point the players had been very happy buying their product from the internet-only shops at up to 40% off. The internet-only shops would order giant loads of the product from distributors at a volume discount, and then sell it at way below the recommended retail price because they, the internet shops, did not have to pay for such mundane things as rent and taxes and employees behind the counter and so on.
What most outraged bargain-hunters failed to realize, however, was that Magic the Gathering (and Pokemon and all other card games and to a large degree games like Warhammer and HeroClix) exist and continue to exist because people can go to shops and meet new players and play regularly and go to tournaments. This is a cycle of renewal for the game, continuously introducing established players to newer ones and vice-versa. The local shops are the places that provide this area to play and trade, and in most areas the local shops also run the tournaments. If players could keep buying 40% discount cards from the internet, the shops that provided these essential services to the community at large would go out of business, and those games would slowly lose players and die out.
Internet shops do not care about such things. They wish to make many bucks as fast as possible until their own business practices parasitically kill the very industry that supports them, then they will move on to the next big thing.
This is no doubt why Games Workshop has made a move to stop this trend.
As much as I hate paying 5-10 for a tiny bit of "white metal" they do have a point. It is that part of the GW experience can be enhanced significantly by an active hobby shop. Things like teaching people how to play, organizing tournaments, teaching basic and advanced painting skills, and other things that help to introduce new players to the game and enhance the game for experienced players. Without these things coming from either a group of friends or a friendly hobby store, I doubt most of us would have ever picked up or kept going with the game. If enough people buy occasionally from the store to take advantage of their hobby building activities but buys the majority of their minis over the internet at steep discounts, they will eventually force the higher cost stores out of business.
Games Workshop is trying to protect these higher cost, but beneficial stores from such ativities, that they own several of these high cost stores makes their actions look less savory, but they do have a valid concern. Although for areas that don't have a full service store, or no store at all, but do have a gaming club, the benefits should flow to the clubs, which serve the same purpose as an active hobby shop. I would suggest that they could organize in the form of a co-op and order wholesale.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.