Re: [Epic] off topic:Wd leaderless?

From: Chris Miller <ironstar_at_...>
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 00:48:46 -0600

> The diploma for business management should include a grenade without the
>pin. Gotta love those bureocrats(spelling optional).
>
> That Chuk Guy
>

---------> Ahem. Some of us on the list have degrees in "business
management". You want a genade without a pin, I believe I can have one
delivered...

Anyway, don't blame their education. Somebody's gotta run the parts of the
company which don't do the playtesting(heh) and magazine articles. Wacked
game designs, stupid mini casting schedules (6 mos for the Eldar?) Weirdness
on the army lists, and cloudy rules issues are not the business guys fault.
And let me say, some of their business practices are just bizarre - "buy a
whole rack" etc for Epic - could you try harder to piss off your retailers?
GW may run the whole show (from conventions to retail shops) in the UK, but
they have less than 10 company stores in the entire US, so "Bob's game
store" IS their retailer.
One simple rule is that if someone wants to buy your product at your asking
price, you sell them as much as they will take, _especially_ when
introducing a new product. If it was some new policy for WH40K or WHFB it
might have worked as those are established products retailers know will
sell. With Epic, the last version wasn't in the same sales league as the
"big 2", plus it's a completely different rules set so some of your
old-timers are going to be reluctant to change. If I don't know it's going
to take off, why require this large entrance fee for the "privilige" of
trying to sell a new untried product? I can spend that same money on some
other product, and maybe not a GW product...so you get Warzone and this new
Chronopia thing seeing an increase in sales.

Bottom line: The retailer is your main salesman,(not your magazine) and
contact point with your customer. If you make him mad or price him out of
the market, he is going to slam your product and promote a competitor's .
This steers new people away from your game, and creates opportunities for
existing customers (players) to get interested in a competing product. Not a
good thing...

Personal Info - I work for a personal electronics company, and we only sell
to people who buy a million $$ a year or more, as it's just not economical
for us to deal in smaller amounts. These are "distributors", and they are
the guys who sell the smaller amounts to individual stores and shops. That's
the way a lot of this stuff works. GW has mostly eliminated the
distributors, forcing the retailers to buy direct from them. GW gets more
money per order, but it can backfire if you start imposing minimum order
amounts on people that most can't afford.

Chris Miller
(Sorry for the length, but somebody's burst hit a few unintended targets,
prompting a near-rant. I'm done. Promise.
Received on Thu Jan 01 1998 - 06:48:46 UTC