An even funner can of worms Games Workshop has opened up here (and it will come up) is that apparently Games Workshop considers these Independents of paramount (or so they claim) importance for future growth and recruitment. Ok. If the independent stores (who sell OTHER product... not being Games Workshop stores) are doing this great favor for Games Workshop, how much are they getting paid? It sounds like Games Workshop itself is cutting back the number and size (and hours) of its stores everywhere. The stated purpose of these stores is to grow the brand, recruit, and so on. It appears very much like Games Workshop is cutting back their own overhead and costs, shifting recruitment and all that jazz in the United States on the Independents. If this is true, wouldn't the discount have to be even LARGER for these LGS than in the past when Games Workshop was doing a lot of this work to support the brand.
In short, Games Workshop isn't providing these gaming locations and all that goes into that. That overhead is footed by the LGS entirely. As a reward for that courtesy which helps Games Workshop FAR MORE than it does the LGS, they have now been told they cannot sell things the way they want to sell them, cannot sell overseas, and so on. So Games Workshop expects the LGS to absorb the costs, limit their profit options, or ELSE. Is that about right?