GW - The good, the bad, and the ugly of the last year or so

[isotope99]

I thought I'd add my two cents to the discussions on GW's activities over the last year or so. Bit of a 40K bias here as I don't play fanatasy and just dabble in the minis.

Let's be positive and start with THE GOOD which does seem to get swamped by the other:

Cool models:
There have been a few missteps (the storm raven air vent and the Dredknight baby carrier come to mind) but generally GW still produce the best miniature kits. The new DE in particular have received almost alll positive reviews.

More options:
We've been moaning for ever about getting more options in the kits and GW has responded (not as much as we would like perhaps but still a vast improvement on older kits where you could double the cost with metal special weapons guys).

The new grey knights, DE and Storm raven for example have been as close as can reasonably be expected given sprue sizes to being fully loaded with all the weapons available.

Additionally, many of the new Warhammer kits have been able to create two different monsters. hopefully the fire prism is an example for 40K to follow but they've missed the opportunity with the DE flyers.

Updates:
Recently FAQs have been arriving much faster than before (still not a substitue for well worded rules Ward ) and have generally been reasonably sensible IMHO.

We've also seen second waves for the latest two armies (BA and DE) arrive promptly and both ranges are now close to complete. Except for plastic henchmen (which we may never see) and release of the Aegis line sprue with quad autocannon only, GK are fairly well covered too.

Micro Plastic kits:
They're just starting to arrive for fantasy but the new small plastic sprues for HQ choices could be a positive sign of things to come. More plastic is always good and they're markedly cheaper than the equivalent metal/finecast models.

Now let's look at THE BAD Boo, hiss

Prices:
Oh, how we all hate price rises. Rather than complain about them in general, I'm going to accept that long term they have to go up (inflation is not a GW conspiracy) and pick on what I see as the worst offenders.

1) Double digit rises - Cut this out, it just makes people mad. Even where the prices haven't been put up in a while, whoever siad that raising prices 35% on some kits during a period of economic challenges for consumers needs slapping with a wet fish. Small rises people can accept, even if they don't like it, but jacking the price the way GW does on some kits is disproportionately annoying, especially with squads where you have to buy more than one.
2) Old kits - I know its a policy that equivalent choices should cost similar amounts, but hiking prices where there is no improvement in the kit to match a newer better kit also rankles. Most recent example is the falcon rising to match the fire prism. If I wanted a falcon now , I'd convert one from the fire prism, as the kit gives you so much more.

Advance orders & WD
Is rumour control good? Maybe, its too early to say, but given that everything leaks online (deliberately or otherwise, it makes no sense to screw over your customers who order from the official store at premium prices or subscribe to WD by making them wait longer.

Does the extra couple of days hurt? No, not really.
Does it feel disrepectful and unnecessary? Yes it does, and so enourages greater use of discount retailers.

Embargo
I'm going to leave this one alone as I really don't understand Australian economics well enough to say whether this is a legitimate local cost problem or GW being greedy (which is probably the popular opinion)

Finally, THE UGLY

There can be only one candidate for this, the finecast launch fiasco.

My limited experience with the actual material so far has been reasonably positive (lighter and better detail)so I'm not yearning for a return to metal, but the launch process has been a mess.

Quality control:
Is there potential for a new product to have some teething problems on production? Yes
Is the level of complaints/QC failures acceptable for a company that supposedly prizes quality? No
Is pretending that everything's awesome and basically ignoring the problem acceptable? Even more no, and I think this what bugs people more

Prices:
Let's launch our new product with a new wave of price rises, after all its better quality, or it will be in six months once we fix teh casting and run down the stock from the early batches.

Time will tell whether the steep rises of metal kits will stop and we may one day forgive if the prices stay down.

[DrLove42]

The Good - Finecast. Wonderful material to work with
The Bad - Finecast. Quality control issues (apparantly....not had any problems myself)
The Ugly - Finecast. Cheaper material that costs more?

[wittdooley]

Nice topic, Iso. I shall chime in

The Good

Agreed with everything you have posted, but I'll add this:

GW Licensed Products - This has been a ridiculously strong year for GW licensed products. Kill Team is hella fun, Space Marine is on the horizon, and Fantasy Flight Games has 3 flourishing RPGs and multiple board games. There are a lot of ways to get your GW gaming fix these days.

Black Library - What can I say, but impressive. The Black Library continues to churn out high quality genre fiction. Further, they occassionally craft novels that transcend the bounds of our genre (Prospero Burns). Their fantasy writing continues to win genre awards as well. They're doing great stuff

GW Online Presence - IMO, the best of any of the major miniature companies. @VoxCaster streams regular updates on Twitter, as well as answering questions to them. The same goes for @BlackLibrary. I don't know why Forge World doesn't have a presence yet; they should. Further, GW regularly updates their blog. These are all wins in my book.

The Bad

I actually don't see the price rises as things that bother me that much. They're unfortunate, I suppose, but I don't complain when any other companies raise their prices, or when the price of gas goes up. I deal with it, and make my purchases as usual.

White Dwarf - Continues to be a frustrating publication. When I compare it to other hobby mags, it's lacking in content. They seem to be making strides in the right direction, but I'm waiting with very baited breath.

Finecast - I can't include it in the ugly because my experience with it (and the other locals I know that have multiple Finecast models) has been overwhelmingly positive. However, I recognize that there have been problems with castings, and it does seem like GW rushed it a bit. The QC for Finecast needs to improve, but I don't have any doubts that it will.

The Ugly

Australia - Their pricing structure needs to be fixed, and now. The reason GW is losing Aussie profit so quickly is because they haven't adjusted their pricing structure for the Australian Dollar. It's a huge problem. It's grossly unfair. It needs to change.

Codex Updates - Necrons. Tau. Sisters. They need some updates, folks. Sorely. GW should lift their rumor policy for these three things. Give us tentative dates for the physical codecies (not the WD ones). If you offered a Q2 2012 as the date for Tau, people would be ecstatic.

[Gir]

N
Australia - Their pricing structure needs to be fixed, and now. The reason GW is losing Aussie profit so quickly is because they haven't adjusted their pricing structure for the Australian Dollar. It's a huge problem. It's grossly unfair. It needs to change.

I would like to point out that average wages in Australia are more then twice that of those in the UK. Pricing is based around income of indivduals, not the cost of the dollar against other currencies (This is how inflation works).

[wittdooley]

I would like to point out that average wages in Australia are more then twice that of those in the UK. Pricing is based around income of indivduals, not the cost of the dollar against other currencies (This is how inflation works).

Does cost of living follow suit as well? How much is a Big Mac in Oz?

[JxKxR]

The Ugly= KIRBY!!! It's my dream to kick this guy where the sun don't shine!

[fuzzbuket]

the good: the models (i havnt tried finecast yet)
the bad: prices, the decay of WD and GK*
the ugly:

[url]http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440005a&prodId=prod1250 234a[/url]

-fuzz

[Melissia]

I would like to point out that average wages in Australia are more then twice that of those in the UK. Pricing is based around income of indivduals, not the cost of the dollar against other currencies (This is how inflation works).

The average worker here makes less than the average worker in New York City, but you don't see a different price between the two. Hell, just looking at the various places in and around Texas (which is over twice as large as the entirety of the British Isles) you'll get widely disparate average income levels.

[Grailkeeper]

As someone who mostly reads BL books and ogles the new models online, its been a pretty good year.

[Grimnar42]

I don't know and don't understand what their pricing policy about Australia is but an example now I have been buying their stuff for a long time OK

I used to be able to buy at an online shop and have an item landed here at my front door for just over half the price of the local shop. I really dont see shipping being half the price of a Rhino.

GW online in UK and US are both cheaper than local (currency comparison on XE dot com ) until you get to the shipping when they want to charge you so much its not worth the effort.

It seems to me instead of trying to be fair about the pricing they are just trying to establish a closed market here.

Cost of living is on the way up and average wage earners are not going to be able to afford the hobby it's as simple as that.