Black Library fiction The End and the Death - Volume III

[Nova-V]

6 hours ago, Sothalor said:

 

And let's face it, they really don't care who ends up with the product, as long as they get their money.

 

Up to a certain point that's true but it does end up hurting GW in the long run and they will be aware of it.  There is an opportunity cost to hobby budgets the same way there is for what GW produce.  Say someone has £100 on hobby per month.  They buy the book direct from GW for £50 a model for £30 GW get £80 of their hobby budget that month. 

 

Now if they end up buying the book from a scalper for £100 (one months budget) GW likely don't really care, they haven't lost much, GW have sold out the item and kept up the FOMO hype.  However at the levels of price gouging we are seeing they will be taking notice as that custome has just lost 3-4 months of hobby budget.  Not only is this say about £200 lost from GWs perspective but they customer also isn't interacting with shops or websites for 3 months as they have no budget which gets them out of the habit of buying regularly.  Add in the reputational damage of people 'giving up' on GW products and it becomes worth stopping scalpers even at the expense of potentially not selling out.

[Arbedark]

1 minute ago, Nova-V said:

 

Up to a certain point that's true but it does end up hurting GW in the long run and they will be aware of it.  There is an opportunity cost to hobby budgets the same way there is for what GW produce.  Say someone has £100 on hobby per month.  They buy the book direct from GW for £50 a model for £30 GW get £80 of their hobby budget that month. 

 

Now if they end up buying the book from a scalper for £100 (one months budget) GW likely don't really care, they haven't lost much, GW have sold out the item and kept up the FOMO hype.  However at the levels of price gouging we are seeing they will be taking notice as that custome has just lost 3-4 months of hobby budget.  Not only is this say about £200 lost from GWs perspective but they customer also isn't interacting with shops or websites for 3 months as they have no budget which gets them out of the habit of buying regularly.  Add in the reputational damage of people 'giving up' on GW products and it becomes worth stopping scalpers even at the expense of potentially not selling out.

 

The people actually dropping £300 on a LE book on ebay are not the same people with small, regular, hobby budgets.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

The bigger issue for GW is the reputational damage. The easy answer for them would probably be not to make these low run limited editions at all. They'll make more money from the normal end electronic editions anyway

[Matcap86]

1 hour ago, Arbedark said:

The general reaction to this from the Warhammer Community has got to be one of the most histrionic in recent times, and it's certainly got some stiff competition. 

 

I mean for collectors like me it was the capping stone to about 12ish years of collection. With even more if you reckon it's partly the foundation myth of 40k. Having that snatched away at 99% due to script kiddies wanting to make a buck and laughing at people being upset. I hope you can forgive some of us being pissed. 

Edited January 25 by Matcap86

[skylerboodie]

59 minutes ago, Arbedark said:

 

The people actually dropping £300 on a LE book on ebay are not the same people with small, regular, hobby budgets.

Regardless, that £250 surplus cash they've now spent on ebay over the book's direct price would likely otherwise easily have been spent on other GW products, which GW will no longer be seeing a piece of, so the point still stands.

[StraightSilver]

Anecdotal evidence but it's certainly affected my buying habits from GW. I have a pretty good job, with a reasonable amount of monthly disposable income. I don't have kids or any other outgoings each month so the majority of my spare cash goes on "The Hobby". I spend an average of £200-£300 a month on the GW store, but some months it can be more than that. I would say I was in the "sweet spot" as far as GW is concerned.

I am also at the stage where I have enough minis to last several life times and so have become more of a collector and one of the things I liked to collect was the Black Library special editions. I used to pretty much collect them all, in the days when all you had to do was get up early on a Saturday morning and start hitting F5 at 9.50am and had a (fairly) good chance of getting a copy but if you didn't could sometimes pick them up instore at Warhammer World or get a copy from the Loot Group or pay a bit more on ebay,

 

However, those days are long gone now and the experience of trying to get a copy has gone from being "exciting" to "stressful, miserable, and time consuming".

Last Saturday I sat in front of my laptop from 9.30am to 12.30pm knowing I wasn't gong to get the book but also wanting to buy some decal sheets for Legions Imperialis (which also normally sell out really fast). I was planning to spend about £100 that morning but couldn't even get to the webstore. After 3 hours I spent £18.50.

I had already made the decision that the Siege of Terra books would be my last special editions, but it's also made me think I just won't bother looking at the webstore on a Saturday morning - what used to take 15 minutes shouldn't now take over an hour.

So, I won't be pre-ordering any more either as I hate myself for falling for FOMO and also then stressing about overspending on ebay just because I'm missing one book or one mini.

I know it's January, so my spending usually drops anyway but GW have so far received £18.50 of my money this month, which is way less than it usually would be. And if I'm not going online every Saturday they probably won't get any more.

If I need anything from now on, I will support my local independent store, which I should have been doing anyway, as I just hate shopping on the new GW website - it's an unpleasant experience at the best of times but this week it's been a nightmare.

Edited January 25 by StraightSilver
typos...

[Halandaar]

1 hour ago, Arbedark said:

The people actually dropping £300 on a LE book on ebay are not the same people with small, regular, hobby budgets.

 

I don't doubt that some of the people buying at massively inflated prices are in the "more money than sense" crowd, but there are absolutely people who are prepared to sacrifice their modest hobby budgets for future months (or their slowly accumulated hobby savings) in order to obtain the final piece of a puzzle they've been working on for years. We shouldn't write those people off just because it doesn't suit the narrative of the whole scheme being propped up by "I'm alright jack" loaded collectors who can afford the markup and therefore don't care.

 

[Valkyrion]

I have no web design or back end e-commerce experience, but would it too difficult to have a points system baked into your warhammer account?

Like, for away football matches where there may only be 3000 tickets available to a fan base of 100,000, the tickets are first released to those with XX points, then those with X points, then finally first come first served general sale - and by buying the ticket your points increase, so by enduring the nightmare that is Leeds United you get to enjoy yourself at Arsenal. 

 

Lots of other places use points to convert into store credit, but I'm more advocating a sort of pseudo loyalty scheme. 

[sarabando]

33 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

I have no web design or back end e-commerce experience, but would it too difficult to have a points system baked into your warhammer account?

Like, for away football matches where there may only be 3000 tickets available to a fan base of 100,000, the tickets are first released to those with XX points, then those with X points, then finally first come first served general sale - and by buying the ticket your points increase, so by enduring the nightmare that is Leeds United you get to enjoy yourself at Arsenal. 

 

Lots of other places use points to convert into store credit, but I'm more advocating a sort of pseudo loyalty scheme. 

i see where you are coming from but heres the problem. 

 

Billy has 1000 points he has spent all his pocket money on GW products since his 12th birthday he loves GW. 

 

Dave has 11,890,200 points hes 43, he doesnt care about warhammer, he has spent tens of thousands of pounds as investments and has made hundreds of thousands of pounds in profit on ebay. 

[StraightSilver]

I also stand by earlier comment that Warhammer+ subscribers were promised "perks" and "early access" that have, so far, not materialised (apart from the first year).

 

So, Warhammer+ subscribers get early access to the store for new releases or limited editions. 

 

I know that won't solve the issue, but might deter some people if they have to shell out a yearly subscription.

Personally, I think the only solution is to go analogue - don't put super rare items on the webstore at all, sell physical copes at events or in GW stores. Or, people like myself should stop buying them for silly money on ebay and the community should let the scalpers watch their items gather dust.... 

[Doghouse]

58 minutes ago, StraightSilver said:

However, those days are long gone now and the experience of trying to get a copy has gone from being "exciting" to "stressful, miserable, and time consuming".

 

59 minutes ago, StraightSilver said:

So, I won't be pre-ordering any more either as I hate myself for falling for FOMO and also then stressing about overspending on ebay just because I'm missing one book or one mini.
 

 

1 hour ago, StraightSilver said:

If I need anything from now on, I will support my local independent store, which I should have been doing anyway, as I just hate shopping on the new GW website - it's an unpleasant experience at the best of times but this week it's been a nightmare.

 

This sums up my hobby experience over the last year or so perfectly. It used to be fun but has become a desperate unpleasant clamour for even the basic stuff these days.

 

[Halandaar]

36 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

I have no web design or back end e-commerce experience, but would it too difficult to have a points system baked into your warhammer account?

Like, for away football matches where there may only be 3000 tickets available to a fan base of 100,000, the tickets are first released to those with XX points, then those with X points, then finally first come first served general sale - and by buying the ticket your points increase, so by enduring the nightmare that is Leeds United you get to enjoy yourself at Arsenal. 

 

Lots of other places use points to convert into store credit, but I'm more advocating a sort of pseudo loyalty scheme. 

 

Right but who would have the most loyalty points on their account, the person who spends a little bit on their personal hobby every other month or the person buying every limited product every week for the express purpose of selling it on? 

[Robbienw]

The only viable solutions are in store only, or anyone who wants one registers their interest and GW picks who gets to purchase by random lottery.

[Valkyrion]

@sarabando and @HalandaarI agree that it is unfair on little Billy, but one day little Billy will be 43 with a million points, and it will be little tommy who suffers, and Dave will be dead. That is a problem with all 'loyalty' based schemes, and there is no perfect solution.  It could be capped at 100 points per 12 month period, or 10 points per order, or 1 point per pound spent, or extra points for WH+ or WD subs - whatever criteria was to be used wouldn't be 'fair' to everyone, but the system as it is now doesn't seem to be fair to anyone.

 

 

[sarabando]

i think the solution is supply. 

2.5k just isnt enough sure you can have 2.5k that are signed but they should make the regular leather bound book should be made to order imo. 

[crimsondave]

1 minute ago, sarabando said:

i think the solution is supply. 

2.5k just isnt enough sure you can have 2.5k that are signed but they should make the regular leather bound book should be made to order imo. 

 

Just do it months in advance before they are even printed.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Yeah, have a Special edition and a Limited Edition.

[Stitch5000]

1 hour ago, Doghouse said:

 

 

 

This sums up my hobby experience over the last year or so perfectly. It used to be fun but has become a desperate unpleasant clamour for even the basic stuff these days.

 

It's a real shame more people got interested in Games Workshop stuff, eh? /sarcasm.


FWIW, doing books on a MTO basis would result in a lot more upset people. 

Trying to book a print slot in with a printer for <UNKNOWN> quantity at any given period is going to cause fluctuations in price, quality and lead time. It just wouldn't work. 

As for limited edition books in the future, a sort of "blind buy" system might work, where you pay your money at the checkout and tick a box to agree that what you might randomly be sent instead of the normal book, is a signed, Limited Edition copy, of which there are only 2500 copies randomly allocated throughout the first print edition. 

If people really want to set up their own economy based on trading these books, so be it. Nothing different to trading cards. 

Edited January 25 by Stitch5000

[phandaal]

4 hours ago, Arbedark said:

The general reaction to this from the Warhammer Community has got to be one of the most histrionic in recent times, and it's certainly got some stiff competition. 

 

Honestly, no. For how badly this went, the reaction has been a lot less rage-filled than expected.

 

People mostly just seem to be done with the BS.

[Stitch5000]

11 minutes ago, Sword Brother Adelard said:

Yeah, have a Special edition and a Limited Edition.

There are already softback, hardback and Limited Edition versions. 

[sarabando]

2 minutes ago, Stitch5000 said:

There are already softback, hardback and Limited Edition versions. 

yeah but the issue is the 2.5k leather bound signed ones sure do that but also do a run of just the leather ones so they fit with peoples collections. 

the 30k reddit community has nearly 80k members the 40k community nearly 800k now factor in all the collectors who dont use reddit or the internet and 40k is just not a small niche hobby any more. so either we accept that youll never get these limited editions or they need to produce more.

[Firedrake Cordova]

10 minutes ago, Stitch5000 said:

Trying to book a print slot in with a printer for <UNKNOWN> quantity at any given period is going to cause fluctuations in price, quality and lead time. It just wouldn't work. 

GW have done a few MTO (POD) books, though - the Horus Heresy and Gaunt's Ghosts line spring immediately to mind.

[Stitch5000]

27 minutes ago, sarabando said:

yeah but the issue is the 2.5k leather bound signed ones sure do that but also do a run of just the leather ones so they fit with peoples collections. 

the 30k reddit community has nearly 80k members the 40k community nearly 800k now factor in all the collectors who dont use reddit or the internet and 40k is just not a small niche hobby any more. so either we accept that youll never get these limited editions or they need to produce more.

Yes, this is exactly the point to be honest. 

LOTS of people are clamouring for quite a small number of books... Even bots aside, it's going to be an absolute melee. 

 

25 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

GW have done a few MTO (POD) books, though - the Horus Heresy and Gaunt's Ghosts line spring immediately to mind.

I imagine not to great profit... Or its just a lot of hard work to pull off, and is placed out of the control of GW themselves. Relying on a third party to fulfil things you have already taken payment for is a BIG NERVOUS situation. 

 

[Etruscan]

Can we assume GW are going to save face and not cancel scalper orders again despite obviously knowing they’ve been outwitted?

[TheArtilleryman]

My son just had a brainwave. 
 

Someone else needs to set up their own scalper bots and buy up a ton of the books, then just resell them at cost. 
 

Beat them at their own game!

Edited January 25 by TheArtilleryman