Today I’m going to do something I don’t do very often, venture away from pure hobby fun and talk about Games Workshop.
Specifically, how constant short-term strategies hurt the long-term growth of our hobby and GW’s sales and profits. Even more specifically, the Glottkin End Times II release.
By now most of my fellow GW enthusiasts will be aware that there was a massive and very cool Chaos Nurgle release over the past few weeks as the second part of the “End Times” expansion for Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB). You may also be aware that (at the time of this writing) the only versions of the Glottikin End Times II book that are available are either the iBook version or the $165 “Special Edition”. The regular $66 US version of the book sold out in just a few hours on the Friday on which it was put up for advance order on the GW website.
Now it’s nothing new for GW to do a limited run of an item to maximize profit on it and minimize unsold stock sitting around in their stores and warehouses. The Nagash End Times I hard back book at $85 US was allowed to sell out as well. The difference is that it took Nagash approximately 3 months to do so. By then the spike in sales on the related models along with the book was past its peak and most people who really wanted a Nagash book had ample opportunity to buy one. Not so for Glottkin, the models for that release aren’t even fully released when the book sold out. In fact, the largest most expensive kit, the Glottkin himself, is released on the same day as the sold out book!
The Glottkin massive multi-part kit.
Here’s the problem with this situation. Sales of a model kit are always at their most voluminous when it is first released and there’s a rush by many people to buy it all at once within the first few weeks. Generally sales of any kit drop to a trickle once the newness has worn off and the model becomes an omnipresent regular stock item. One thing that helps drive that peak in sales for a new model release are the accompanying books with rules and background for the new models. GW has released four new kits for Glottkin End Times II including a massive new monster that costs $109 US. Yet most people looking to buy the Glottkin book to support their new End Times II purchases will be disappointed. The web store is sold out and retail outlets will only be getting a few to sell on release day, mostly commonly only about three or four copies at most locations.
Now I rarely side with tournament players on GW issues. I don’t play tournaments and I rarely play games of Warhammer at all these days. However, I never stop buying models. I’m that model collector and hobbyist that GW is always talking about as being their main customer, someone who will buy their models whether or not I’m playing games with them. But I do agree with the avid tournament players on one thing, GW’s rules and game system do drive a lot of sales in addition to those made by pure hobbyists. It would be foolish to ignore this fact in any marketing strategy for new or existing GW product.
Blightkings are a fabulous kit with many different build options.
Personally, I was really looking forward to buying the Glottkin End Times II book. Though I play little these days I’m a collector of all things Chaos and the rules and background in this particular book sound fascinating. When I began the hobby during the Rogue Trader days the Realm Of Chaos rules allowed everything Chaos to be used together in all of GW’s games and Glottkin End Times II (GETII) takes WFB back there as has happened in a cyclic manner a few times in the 25 years I’ve been at the GW hobby. This was the most excited I’ve been about maybe actually playing WFB in at least a couple years. It was also the most excited I’ve been about buying one of their rule books since the first Apocalypse expansion for 40K in 2007.
Now I could have ordered GETII from the web store. I was at my computer right after it went up for advance order. However, it didn’t say anything about “strictly limited quantities” as is often the case with GW and as I was planning to be at my local GW store the next day I decided to wait till Saturday to place the order in the store. Since the Nagash End Times I hard back book took about three months to sell out I assumed waiting a single day to order it at my local store wouldn’t be particularly risky. That helps support the store by putting the money for the purchase into the till at the store rather than GW Direct. Little did I know my decision to try and support my local GW store in Bowie, MD would backfire and prevent me from advance ordering the book at all. GETII was sold out within a few hours of appearing in the web store.
Maggoth Lords are another spectacular Glottkin release.
Why is this a problem and for whom? The answer is that it’s a problem for everyone involved.
First, there are a huge number of disappointed customers when something like this sells out so fast. Many of the customers planning to buy this book will also likely now be curtailing their model purchases in disappointment. After all, many GW customers, especially the avid WFB gamers, won’t be buying models for which they can’t buy a rule book. Having the GETII book be unobtainable for most customers in the midst of the release can’t help model sales and surely may hurt them, possibly quite a bit. And not only for the new Nurgle models being released, but on accompanying sales of existing models gamers might have been contemplating purchasing to go with their End Times II forces expansions. For many people no new rule book will surely translate to no new model purchases. This situation is bad for customer enthusiasm and terrible for GW sales.
Second, it hurts the GW stores quite a bit. GW store operators around the country are unhappy about the loss in sales. Of course this includes my own local store where I was also not able to spend the $66 I would have gladly given the store to order the Glottkin book. Nearly every customer coming to GW stores to pre-order the GETII book had to be turned away after the first few hours it was for sale on the Friday in question. This also discourages loyal brick-and-mortar GW store customers from waiting to order other items like this at the store in the future because after being left out in the cold for GETII customers will be more likely to just order off the web immediately the next time instead of waiting to buy it when they can next get to their local shop. GW should be doing everything it can to encourage customers to go to their local shops and this situation has the opposite effect.
White Dwarf previews get customers excited to buy the new models and rule book. But how many people who want a Glottkin book will actually be able to get one?
The unavailability of the new Glottkin rule book therefore hurts GW Corporate, its retail shops, its customers, independent retailers, its profits and its shareholders. Everyone involved is negatively affected.
While it’s true that there are basic rules for each of these new Nurgle End Times kits included with the models the GETII book has tons more background and additional rules and scenarios to make using the new models (and existing ones) more varied and exciting. There are even new rules for fighting WFB games in towns.
How many more people might have bought models to go with this release if they could have purchased a book? How many people who did get it will have fewer people with whom to play games and share it because of the lack of books available? How much shorter will the active gaming life of this expansion be because of this situation?
To add insult to injury the GW website’s “What’s New Today” on October 29 is actually pushing the book that virtually no one can get! It mentions that stores will have a few on release day, but the operative word there is “few”. Customers shouldn’t have to compete so hard to get something that is nearly essential for a new model release. Buying the product should be easy and fun, not a competition. For those who missed ordering it on the web store, can’t or won’t buy the $165 limited version and who can’t be first in line at their store on release day they won’t be getting this book for what is possibly a long while if at all.
Is there anything more fun than a massive army of painted miniatures? Even casual gamers want a book with rules and background to support their hobby projects.
GW will surely do another printing of the GETII book down the road somewhere, not only just the one End Times book, but likely I should think a set of all the End Times books after the individual volumes have all been released. But that does little good for the many people who really wanted GETII now and who can’t get it. And if there is another printing of GETII in a few weeks or months by then the excitement over the new release will long be over and sales of the book and accompanying models will likely be rather flat compared to what they could be doing right now during the new release window. It’s new release sales suicide for GW and a discouraging situation for their customers and retail shops.
As of this writing I’m hoping to be able to still snag a copy of GETII at a local shop this coming weekend. If I am lucky enough to be one of the few who gets one that still doesn’t solve GW’s problem of thousands more missed sales for their shops, independent sellers and web store and the damage to the company, the growth of the hobby and this new release as a whole. How many more people might have bought models to go with this release if they could have purchased a book? How many people who did get it will have fewer people with whom to play games and share it because of the lack of books available? How much shorter will the active gaming life of this expansion be because of this situation? I (and Nurgle) are weeping for what might have been.
So how about you? Did you want a Glottkin End Times II book and if so, were you able to obtain one? Did you buy models inspired by or connected to this release? Did you decide not to buy models because you couldn’t get a Glottkin End Times II book? Leave your comments below. Please keep it polite, even if you’re as annoyed by this as I clearly am. Cheers.
About the Author: BrassScorpion
