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[GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
Grimshawl
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 7:49 pm 
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You can only disapoint so many of your customers for so long before you start paying for it, no matter how big a company is. I havent liked GW for a while now but still I would prefer to see them turn themselves around and straighten out instead of completely going under, they just seem to hard headed and obtuse to learn their lesson tho.

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Carrington
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 5:45 pm 
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Hmm.. the Mordheim Ulthuan event that GW is sponsoring seems to suggest the direction they plan to go instead of LOTR.

WH, WH40k, Mordheim as the trinity?  Much as it's not my/ (our) cup of tea, it probably makes good business sense.

I guess one of the big decisions GW has to make is whether to go upscale or downscale from their two flagship games. ?I suspect that they might figure going "downscale" -- i.e. to 1:1 focus on the gaming table -- may be a better business strategy for these reasons:

A) Closer to their core competence, which is building cool miniatures with personality.

B) ?Better chance of pulling in young MMORGers

C) Tough and competitive market for the grognard set -- Epic will always face competition from Dirtside, DRM, Exodus Wars, or even Striker or Ogre. Warmaster will always face competition from DBM. ?And, most importantly, the market for figures in these realms is much more competitive and price elastic.

The problem that they face is encapsulated in the choices I have to make in building a sword and sorcery army for WM/WMa. ?GW's unit blister offers ?~36 10mm dwarves/chaos/skeleton spearmen @$12. ?Old Glory's Unit pack offers 100 10mm Romans standing at attention, $12. ? ?I like the GW sense of humor and artistry. ?But on the table, my 2.5 units of Romans will look almost as good...

With larger scale figures, this trade-off is not so extreme. "Ulli and Marquand" are firmly GW's intellectual property. ?They have a bit less cache than Aragorn or Gandalf, ?but that IP is 1) not "rented" from Tolkien and 2) the Mordheim gamer might be willing to pay to use that IP under the close spotlight.

Just guessing, but (much as I don't like it personally) the strategy seems to make a lot of sense. Indeed, I'd imagine that GW's reports to its shareholders emphasize their efforts to "leverage their Intellectual Property more effectively" and "capitalize on new market trends."

?It doesn't do much for the audience here, but if a business has to retrench, it makes the most sense to review its core competence and focus there.
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Otterman
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:13 pm 

(Carrington @ Mar. 26 2007,11:45)
QUOTE
Warmaster will always face competition from DBM. ?

DBM?
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Carrington
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:17 pm 
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(Otterman @ Mar. 26 2007,18:13)
QUOTE

(Carrington @ Mar. 26 2007,11:45)
QUOTE
Warmaster will always face competition from DBM. ?

DBM?

De Bellus Multitudinous (?), or whatever it's called... the big, tournament focused set of ancients rules, a descendant, I think, of the old Wargames Rules miniature rules from the '70s.

Many of the players are grognards from the '70s as well.

:D

Ironically, Warmaster/WMa may be a better set of rules and better "IP" than DBM.  But GW's genius is that it has recognized that it will always struggle to realize the value in its rules -- hence it has made them (or at least the Specialist sets) freeware.  This is why GDW (for example) is long defunct while GW is publicly traded.
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mageboltrat
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:25 pm 
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I followed that wikilink and came across this... It made me laugh so I thought I would share.


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Otterman
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:27 pm 
Let's all hug Wikipedia.
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Legion 4
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:48 pm 
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Wow !  Day B fly'n !  But, G/W is putting Epic Waaaaay in the back of the bus. This month they releases the Epic Chaos sprues/2 per box ... the first Epic stuff in about a year ! Consectari & I are getting a box to cherry pick between us !   So I'm a big fan of DRM & E/W ... they release cool 6mm sci-fi every month or so ! :D

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Sergeant_Crunch
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:43 pm 
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Don't forget that Osprey is also getting involved with a set of historical rules. http://www.tacticalwargames.net/cgi-bin....;t=8976

That's another spot where Warmaster might feel a pinch.

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CyberShadow
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:21 am 
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(Carrington @ Mar. 26 2007,17:45)
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WH, WH40k, Mordheim as the trinity? ?Much as it's not my/ (our) cup of tea, it probably makes good business sense.

I think that this is extremely unlikely. The rules are (currently) free, and the miniatures would cut into those already for sale for WHFB, and dont require more than a dozen anyway. There is almost no money to be made here by GW.

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Carrington
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:26 am 
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(CyberShadow @ Mar. 27 2007,00:21)
QUOTE

(Carrington @ Mar. 26 2007,17:45)
QUOTE
WH, WH40k, Mordheim as the trinity? ?Much as it's not my/ (our) cup of tea, it probably makes good business sense.

I think that this is extremely unlikely. The rules are (currently) free, and the miniatures would cut into those already for sale for WHFB, and dont require more than a dozen anyway. There is almost no money to be made here by GW.

The rumor seems to be that the rules are undergoing a rewrite....  It seems doubtful that that version would be free.

As to their overall strategy, you may be right.... Though they might be thinking that they can inch their prices past the $5 price point with Mordheim personalities -- it looks like they're aiming at 5-10/figure...  (and they can also allow players to reinject these figures into WH).

If it were their strategy, it would be one of offering Mordheim figures as a sort of "premium" WH figures (and justifying going "upmarket" with individual figures). (By the way, I think this was what they  were trying to do with LOTR as well -- hence the various Gandalf and Aragorn figures.   I don't think they'd worry about cutting into WH sales all that much because, in essence it would mean that the "trinity" was actually just WH40k, WH, and WH+ (AKA Mordheim).  

In a way it would be a way of retrenching from a "trinity" without having to admit to doing so, while having the advantage of being able to broaden their WH fanbase somewhat.
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Steve54
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:10 am 
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I was under the impression that the upcoming Mordheim event was tacked onto a WFB campaign weekend, like the Epic GT will be attached to a 40k tournament.Thanks to the SG GT being axed - no plan to make Mordheim more important just the cheapest/most little effort way to provide GTs for some of the SGs

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Otterman
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:14 pm 
I'm skeptical. Why Mordheim, and not, say, Necromunda? The same reasoning can apply.
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Carrington
 Post subject: [GW] The lingering death of Specialist Games
PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 3:10 pm 
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(Otterman @ Mar. 27 2007,14:14)
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I'm skeptical. Why Mordheim, and not, say, Necromunda? The same reasoning can apply.

Agreed. ?I wouldn't be surprised if it was a choice between Mordheim and Necromunda.

I suppose the upside to Necro would be that it might benefit from synergies with the WH40k online game.

The downside is that vehicles provide a fundamental complication for the scale (and, perhaps as well, the WH40k market may be already stronger because people move from buying infantry to buying vehicles).

But I'd agree, there's not _that_ much to separate the two. ?In the end the only strong reason to bet on Mordheim over Necro is that Mordheim is a closer fit to GW's open niche, which is the LOTR system.

I was under the impression that the upcoming Mordheim event was tacked onto a WFB campaign weekend, like the Epic GT will be attached to a 40k tournament.Thanks to the SG GT being axed - no plan to make Mordheim more important just the cheapest/most little effort way to provide GTs for some of the SGs


You may be right.  I am just speculating.  But they could just as easily have tacked on Warmaster -- certainly of the two they see Mordheim as the better field to fertilize.
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