Wait... so Glottkin sold out?

[flipchuck]

Just to check; everyone is aware there is an e-book edition of Glottkin right?

That's cool and such but I'm an old school gammer. I rather an acutal book. There's a better chance of losing the e-book with delete files by mistake or computer (or tablet) crash. Or in some cases, dead batteries when I need the book the most. Unless I physcally lose the book, its usually there when I need. I find the e-book versions are usually just a good back up.

[Wildeybeast]

So mentioning there's an "e-book" version of it is moot, as a lot of people don't have iPads. Which still leaves people stuck until the softcover comes out.

I was just trying to be helpful and make sure people were aware the ebook was available if they wanted it. I hadn't checked what formats it was out on and it's not exactly my fault GW don't make it available in non-Apple formats.

There are also plenty of copies available on eBay-if people are desperate.

[Erik Setzer]

I was just trying to be helpful and make sure people were aware the ebook was available if they wanted it. I hadn't checked what formats it was out on and it's not exactly my fault GW don't make it available in non-Apple formats.

There are also plenty of copies available on eBay-if people are desperate.

No, not your fault that the company was short-sighted. It sucks for everyone, and I just can't figure out what leads to decisions like this. It's like they want to get money ASAP and producing limited quantities of items and telling people "BUY IT NOW!!!" is a way to do that, but eventually you start burning out the goodwill of the customers because some of them are getting the shaft in all of this. Sure, with the books, they might release the books later, but I know people who want to play with those rules right now, and it means either they have to wait to do so, or they just borrow/copy someone else's book, and then down the line they figure they don't need to buy the actual book.

And, of course, there's the poor managers, having to deal with telling people, "I only got three copies and I'm not allowed to hold any of them back, even if I know someone really wants it and plans on using the rules."

[Lexington]

I'd say Glottkin sold out with their third studio album, 1974's Sniff the Glott.

[flipchuck]

I'd say Glottkin sold out with their third studio album, 1974's Sniff the Glott.

Not sure its because of the 3 hours of sleep, but that's the best geek joke in a very long time.

[Mr Mystery]

No, not your fault that the company was short-sighted. It sucks for everyone, and I just can't figure out what leads to decisions like this. It's like they want to get money ASAP and producing limited quantities of items and telling people "BUY IT NOW!!!" is a way to do that, but eventually you start burning out the goodwill of the customers because some of them are getting the shaft in all of this. Sure, with the books, they might release the books later, but I know people who want to play with those rules right now, and it means either they have to wait to do so, or they just borrow/copy someone else's book, and then down the line they figure they don't need to buy the actual book.

And, of course, there's the poor managers, having to deal with telling people, "I only got three copies and I'm not allowed to hold any of them back, even if I know someone really wants it and plans on using the rules."

Which is great, if we have any idea how many were printed, and what the expected volume of sales was. Which we don't.

As is covered on the first page of the thread, GW have confirmed more are on the way.

[Erik Setzer]

Which is great, if we have any idea how many were printed, and what the expected volume of sales was. Which we don't.

As is covered on the first page of the thread, GW have confirmed more are on the way.

This is why you do market research, so you don't end up screwing up like this and have a PR mess on your hands. The book has rules for combining all kinds of Chaos, how could it not be popular? One of the guys at the local GW store asked me, "So I can add Beastmen to my Warriors now?" And when I told him yeah, he got all kinds of giddy and wanted to rush to the store early to get a copy (even though he's been mostly playing Dwarfs lately... he was just that excited about the Chaos stuff).

I'm going to remain optimistic that a new CEO will help fix some of these issues. Nagash and Glottkin are already responsible for an increase in enthusiasm and people wanting to buy a lot more stuff. You want to ride that wave as long as possible. The Nagash book should have told them how popular things would be (and it was $85!), if they don't print more for the inevitable End Times: Prancing Fairies after seeing two rounds of this, I'm going to be amazed.

[Wildeybeast]

How would market research have helped? Short of them saying 'we plan to do this book, how ,any people would buy a copy', they wouldn't gather any additional info beyond what they already have to predict sales volumes. Most companies don't do that sort of market research and GW simply aren't going to let slip that sort of info. The current rumour mill hype is working well for them.

This is of course assuming that selling out is due to poor planning and not simply deliberate to drive up demand.

[Erik Setzer]

How would market research have helped? Short of them saying 'we plan to do this book, how ,any people would buy a copy', they wouldn't gather any additional info beyond what they already have to predict sales volumes. Most companies don't do that sort of market research and GW simply aren't going to let slip that sort of info. The current rumour mill hype is working well for them.

This is of course assuming that selling out is due to poor planning and not simply deliberate to drive up demand.

There's two options:

1. They don't know enough about their customer base to know there'd be high demand for this product.
2. They know there's high demand, but they also know people will wait to buy something until they can afford it better if they know it'll be around, so GW releases limited numbers to get maximum amount of people buying it RIGHT NOW in a panic, so that GW gets more revenues in the immediate future, because for some reason they need to get as much money as possible in as soon as possible.

Neither is really a good sign for the customers. But, again, I remain optimistic that a new CEO might be able to convince them to abandon that kind of stuff (and I suspect the current CEO has something to do with it, as such tactics mean he can leave the company to go elsewhere and say "See how well I did at bringing in money?" even if it isn't even remotely sustainable long-term and might come back to bite the company in the rear... much like a politician who signs legislation that in the short term seems great but in the long term, once he's out of office and someone else can be blamed, the negatives start rolling in).

[Wildeybeast]

Most likely the second. Though shafting your customers on release is not limited to GW. The big computer game companies know exactly how many pre-orders they have and so how much demand will be placed on their servers, yet they still fail to cater for it, resulting in big crashes on release (witness Diablo and GtA V last year). They know that the peak demand for servers is in the first couple of weeks of release and will settle down after that. Spending more money to cater for big upgrade in servers that they will never need after those first couple of weeks isn't something they are willing to do, so they take the bad PR on the chin. What do they care, they already have your money.

GW are probably thinking something similar. They have sold all their stock and made however much money they wanted to make from it. The money is in the bank and people are moaning that they want to give GW more money, which is pretty much a dream scenario for any business. Sure, it's a crappy customer experience if you missed out, but there are all those happy customers out there telling everyone how good the book is and making sure those unhappy customers still spend up when the reprint comes out. Hell, I plumped up for the limited edition just because the ordinary one was sold out and I'll probably sell it and grab the paperback when that comes and I won't be the only one. It sucks on our end, but it's probably a pretty solid business plan for GW. They know their customer base VERY well IMO.