Is GW's constant "limited release" marketing starting to bite back?

[limburger 21775xp 0]

@craigwrdouglas I’d rather have a chance of missing it at release than the silly preorder nonsense, because I don’t feel like giving them anything until reviews and unboxings have been done by non GW employees.

Sooner or later people will realise that they should not let FOMO empty their wallets.

[maledrakhParticipant 11996xp 2]

The part that I object to is that they constrict the sales numbers so badly that even when I have preordered at my FLGS, they sell out before the FLGS get any, or they allocate a lower number to them than there exist preorders for. And the special minis are not released for single sales either. I mean, where is the ghoul king or the squig hopper, the skaven warlock engineer or that flappy woody guy? But all the ebay scalpers seem to have large quanities at exorbiant prices. I do not wish to buy from those (derogative) just on general principle. Goddamn those ebay scalpers.

 

Typically, the ones I want are out of stock before release, and the ones I do not want languish in large piles in all the shops, scaring them for making/ordering enough of the next one that I am fixing to get. And I really really hate to get all hyped up for the new shiny only to be denied before the release, or even two weeks after release when the items should be readily available.

…

 

 

 

 

[limburger 21775xp 1]

@maledrakh stores not able to fullfill the (pre)orders of their (loyal) customers is definitely bad.
I’d even argue that it ought to be illegal.

Of course part of the problem is not knowing who is at fault here, because it could be the store simply taking preorders while GW may not even have the option to do so.

I’ve definitely heard of this sort of thing happen to customers who preordered video games from certain stores in the USA.

It definitely would annoy me if a store did that to me.

[koraskiParticipant 1981xp 0]

I’m still pissed I missed the LotR/ME stat cards. It makes me bitter and not wanting to play the game at all, which is sad as it’s a good game. It’s the fact that they sold out before I even heard they existed! If I knew they’d eventually print more I’d be ok with it. I don’t mind waiting for another production run. It’s the “Look at this! Isn’t it awesome? Don’t you want it? Well too bad you NEVER GET ONE!” that pisses me off.

Regarding the SoB army box I got up early and sat at the computer hitting refresh for a good 15 min before it was scheduled to go on sale. I THINK I’m getting a copy. The site crashed not long after I finished the checkout. It’s an XMas present for my gf who’s wanted “battle nuns” for many many years. I’m glad I got an order in but still annoyed I had to go through such lengths for it. I’m perfectly happy with the generic releases next year but she’s a collector and not having the special edition book and minis would bother her. I am pretty sure the releases in January will be different than the ones in the army box. Looking close at the preview images for each show subtle differences in pose and decorative bits like purity seals. For a collector it matters to have both versions.

[phaidknott 7027xp 3]

I know some FLGS and online stores have had to “disappoint” customers as they ordered X amount (but GW didn’t allocate the total numbers OR simply they got overwhelmed with pre-orders). The Blood of the Pheonix “toxic” stock was simply because it was a bad deal (£140 box with 6 “exclusive Howling Banshees and the fact the Elder and Dark Eldar have been pretty much ignored for a number of years that there’s not many players collecting them OR they’ve already got all they need….so spending £140 for a box of 6 figure you might want to add to your army and a load of figures you’ve probably already got made it a “do not want” decision).

Again it’s all this jumping through hoops on about 50% of what GW release these days (and the situation with the card packs is just silly). It’s annoying customers, it’s damaging to the FLGS as they can’t maintain stock levels (or have to gamble by over ordering). Basically it’s GREAT for GW, but not so good for everyone else.

So for me I’ll not get Bloodbowl (because I’ve already missed loads of stuff that’s not going to appear again, so I’ve walked away). Adeptus Titianicus because you can’t get some of the stuff that’s needed to play anymore (and all the cards and dashboards made an already expensive game become UBER expensive. Friends NOT buying even a gang for Necromunda because they can’t get the tactics cards that go with the gangs (and these rules make a big difference, and we’ve not got all of them in or gaming group to even lend them out for a game). So it’s damaging the growth of the games for newer players who might want to get in (again I quote Gerry on this “waiting for GW to release a COMPLETE game”). Exclusives/Limited Runs all the time and all the games just wears away at gamers enthusiasm for the games. It’s beggaring FLGS who might not have the money to “gamble” on what’s going to be a hot seller and what’s not (as they only get ONE change to order).

We remember GW when the legal dept went crazy as the “bad GW”, I wonder in a few years if we’ll remember this current phase in GWs history by another name later on (I can think of a few, but they’ve all got swear words in 😀 )

 

[lobstermooch 2096xp 1]

Regarding necromunda gang cards, I heard they are available for free to download on the community site.

Means you gotta make them into cards yourself or whatever else works. I’m guessing the cards are made by a third party and costs GW more to purchase. Given its for a smaller game, and not an essential component I can see why they don’t wanna keep cards for more than a limited release. Probably have a minimum order amount from manufacturer too that they may not be confident in being able to move.

Regarding scalpers. Do what Kingdom Death does, limit of one per customer. Won’t eliminate all scalpers, but they can’t just add 10 to the order.

Best way to beat scalpers. Don’t buy from them. None of these products are necessities. You don’t need to buy toy soldiers.

We’d like to buy them, sometimes we reeeeeaaaally want a specific release, but I’d rather not have a coveted mini/box than feed a scalper. Because feeding them means they’ll keep doing it.

[limburger 21775xp 0]

Heck, I’d say that a limited release of a big army box (like the sisters of battle) or a 2 player starter set (like shadowspear) is annoying, but the majority has been followed by release of the units involved.

The unit cards and other army specific exclusives (like the dice for gloomspite gitz) have not.

Even their underworld game suffers from the needlessly limited stupidity. Although some units are still technically available (GW webstore only) it effectively puts them out of reach of those who aren’t as obsessed with the hobby in general as we are.

To me that’s the thing that is going to hurt GW in the long run the most, because it kills the collection of armies by anyone not ordering ‘everything’ at release. I got lucky, because I got Molog and Nazbag for my minions. However with effectively half my potential additional units (like the spiders) web-only I have to hope GW still has them in stock on-line when I ‘need’ to buy them. I don’t want to order stuff I don’t even know I could use simply because GW is unreliable for anything other than the 2-3 armies they actually support during the lifetime of a version.

And again … as much as I hate preorders companies and shops doing that should be legally bound to provide the product.(period)
It sucks that a complaint or even legal action is not viable, because these are ‘cheap’ products.
However I do wonder if a public twitter/social media complaint would work for this sort of thing.

[phaidknott 7027xp 0]

@lobstermooch You’ll have to point me as to where on the community site these downloadable cards are. I DID find some via the Necromunda page (for about 5 generic rules cards), but they weren’t the gang specific ones 🙁

https://www.warhammer-community.com/downloads/

 

[shredheadParticipant 5177xp 1]

There you go: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/05/24/necromunda-gang-tactics-cardsfw-homepage-post-3/

 

[phaidknott 7027xp 2]

Cheers Shredhead (hadn’t seen those ones), but there’s not the ones I was talking about. The Gang Tactics box of cards has about 12-14 tactic cards specific to each gang, there’s all OOP now (and it’s those we’re just trying to get the rules for, even the text from the cards so we can make our own (with paper and a ballpoint pen). Our group has some of them, but some gangs we didn’t move fast enough. We also tried to get the “Underdog” cards (for balancing out fights with gangs with wildly different gang ratings), but again these were sold out in the pre-order phase before they even got to retail.

It’s a problem with half the rules are ONLY printed on these card packs (wouldn’t be so bad if GW just went “old skool” and printed the rules in the rulebooks and then released the cards as a convenience thing (like they used to)).

Alas these limited runs things make it really hard for gamers who want to get into the game facing opponents with these cards and not being able to counter in kind (or you just remove the cards entirely from the games, but this removes a lot of the “flavour” between each gang). I had a similar issue with Bloodbowl (as I couldn’t get the team cards for that game system), as the players who had been in from the start were using the cards in their games. So I ended up just walking away from the game rather frustrated at the stupidness  that these marketing decisions had made to the game for me as a “new” customer 🙁

 

[limburger 21775xp 0]

Yikes @phaidknott … I disliked how Necromunda supported the gangs, but making essential gameplay elements part of a limited release does suck.

I’m tempted to think that someone within GW is actively sabotaging games, because a company can’t be so stupid that they make essential parts of a game into limited release. That’s a strategy that is going to bite them long term as there is no way for new players to start playing once these things have sold out.

Killteam also appears to suffer from this as the various faction specific commanders, terrain kits and pre-build teams are sold out as well. I don’t know if rules within those sets are available for download.

Warcry may be next on the list of games that are impossible to find players for who didn’t get in at launch (the non Chaos unit cards are sold out).

[shredheadParticipant 5177xp 1]

Got ya, mate. Here they are: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wzkvz9cmxyumnav/Necromunda%20Underhive%20-%20Custom%20Gang%20Cards%20PRINT.pdf?dl=0

Source: https://yaktribe.games/community/vault/printable-illustrated-custom-tactics-cards-dark-uprising.935/

You should join that community purely for their amazing work surrounding all things skirmish games. Their download vault is a treasure trove!

[phaidknott 7027xp 0]

Yup I think I read somewhere that there’s now been over 190 of these tactics cards released for Necromunda (never mind the ones for campaigns etc) to date and these haven’t been reprinted in the main rulebooks. So that’s a sizable amount of the rules now OOP….

https://www.goonhammer.com/necromunday-tactics-cards-which-ones-are-good-and-how-to-use-them/

I’ll take a look Shredhead (cheers for that), now if only they’ve got similar for bloodbowl 😀

 

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