20-50% price increase for forge world, even in the US despite now having a local store. FW deleting all criticism on Facebook.

[hughwyeth]

1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

Well the net positive of all this is last night our store manager / owner has now banned Forgeworld from the store, so at least for us this won't be an issue.

Why would it be an issue? I don't get it- FW stuff is hardly overpowered these days?

[Unit1126PLL]

Man, the FW hate is strong today. I suppose the fact that this was probably not on FW's design team and rather on GW's marketing team is irrelevant.

[TheMuphinMan]

The way I see it, its more that they are letting the UK keep the discount that was a side effect of the pound tanking rather than raising the price for everyone else as they could of easily just increased the prices in GBP. Plaguetoads would cost me the same amount of money as they would of when I first started playing AoS 2 years ago. However as an American, I'm a petty ****** and probably won't buy any out of spite because I'm kicking myself for missing the Brexit Sale.

[jackmcmahon]

Doesn't making up your own exchange rate (price of a commodity) just create the opportunity for arbitrage?  He says exchange rate is x. Rest of the world says y.  Someone in the rest of the world can just buy the product without exchange and sell to ppl globally at real exchange rate? Sales stay the same for fw, but they continue to just come from HQ and the money they spent on global brick and mortar is wasted? Clearly don't know what I'm talking about, but I love economics and would love to hear why this is/isn't right.

[Dead Scribe]

Has nothing to do with overpowered.  There's plenty of undercosted overpowered stuff in the core game.  Its that its another layer of rules and warscrolls to have to memorize.

[amysrevenge]

LOL "memorize".

[swarmofseals]

3 minutes ago, jackmcmahon said:

Doesn't making up your own exchange rate (price of a commodity) just create the opportunity for arbitrage?  He says exchange rate is x. Rest of the world says y.  Someone in the rest of the world can just buy the product without exchange and sell to ppl globally at real exchange rate? Sales stay the same for fw, but they continue to just come from HQ and the money they spent on global brick and mortar is wasted? Clearly don't know what I'm talking about, but I love economics and would love to hear why this is/isn't right.

On a small scale this kind of thing happens. The problem is that GW bans independent stockists/FLGS from selling product outside their geographical region (as defined by GW). If this weren't the case, then I'd probably buy most of my new product directly from the UK because it'd be cheaper even with international shipping costs. For example, I could purchase a Great Unclean One from Wayland Games for 68 pound or from Dicehead for $119. At current conversion rates, purchasing from Wayland would cost me about $87. Suffice to say the cost of international shipping is way less than $32. 

However, Wayland won't sell me a GUO at all because GW doesn't allow it. If Wayland violated these rules, GW would simply stop supplying them with product.

So if you are a small operation you could probably make a small amount of money buying up stock in the UK and selling it globally on eBay or whatever, but you couldn't actually scale it up to the point where you'd make significant money. 

 

I was just thinking about selling off part of my Legion of Azgorh hoard because it's way on the back burner for me project wise, but now I think I will be holding off on that. 

[Freejack02]

13 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Has nothing to do with overpowered.  There's plenty of undercosted overpowered stuff in the core game.  Its that its another layer of rules and warscrolls to have to memorize.

Never understood this argument - what blanket ruleset is unique to FW models? It's not like there's a specific FW "Rules of 1" or anything - it's just more models for more/expanded factions. If models were consistently overpowered/undercosted that would be another thing, but that isn't really the case.

[michu]

9 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Has nothing to do with overpowered.  There's plenty of undercosted overpowered stuff in the core game.  Its that its another layer of rules and warscrolls to have to memorize.

That's pretty weird argument, because people usually use single FW miniatures (except LoA, of course) and besides, with that argument you could ban other things e.g. "we don't use GA Destruction and GA Death and GA  Chaos - only GA Order (preferably one army for all so there would be less things to memorize). 

[jackmcmahon]

3 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

On a small scale this kind of thing happens. The problem is that GW bans independent stockists/FLGS from selling product outside their geographical region (as defined by GW). 

...

So if you are a small operation you could probably make a small amount of money buying up stock in the UK and selling it globally on eBay or whatever, but you couldn't actually scale it up to the point where you'd make significant money.

Ah, this makes more sense.  Well, guess we just find small scale operations.  Still supports gw and uses globally accepted exchange rate.  If such a person is on here, I want to buy a troggoth hag, haha.

[Vhordrai]

It is unlikely to make a difference unless their bottom line is hurt ($), however for what it's worth there is a petition taking off that is against the changes:

https://www.change.org/p/kevin-rountree-it-s-time-to-change-your-pricing-structure-games-workshop

[LLV]

Although I wish it luck, these petitions rarely do anything. As others have said - just dont buy until the prices are changed. It's really that simple. If US, Canada and Aus/NZ make up even say 50% of FW sales and those sales disappear for the next month someone WILL notice and it will likely be changed.

If you want more of a direct impact - I suggest emailing customer service showing them what you would have bought that month, but then not going ahead with the purchase.

Actions speak louder than words or petitions.

[Sleboda]

6 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

I'm sure that when FW were created, we were told they were a subsidiary of GW - they were certainly run as an independent concern at one point, with their own warehouse, production and dispatch facilities.  That's probably where some of the confusion has come from - they're certainly a division of GW PLC now and this recent change suggests that when the new expansion goes ahead we may see a single warehouse coming into play (to go with the single dispatch system).

It's been this way since inception. When I worked there many, many years ago, we were shown a structure chart as part of "welcome to the company."

This was a few months after GW went public. It showed all the brands under the big umbrella. We asked why they did it this way and were told it allowed each branch/division/whatevs to live and die on its own, but ultimately contribute to Group.

My favorite of all time was the Marauder brand story. I remember in WD how they said the Morrisons were leaving to form their own company producing models in their style that were approved to be used in GW games, and GW wished them luck on their venture.

Ha! It was just a way to give haters a "different, not-GW company" to support. In actuality, the dollars all still flowed to GW and the Morrisons were (and still are?) GW employees. (I think this is similar to how Starbucks owns Seattle's Best so that Starbucks can still get money from people who hate Starbucks - but I may have that one wrong.)

Not saying it's a bad idea, but anyone who wants to say FW is and always has been anything other than a 100% arm of the GW Group is fooling themselves.

[novakai]

1 hour ago, Freejack02 said:

Never understood this argument - what blanket ruleset is unique to FW models? It's not like there's a specific FW "Rules of 1" or anything - it's just more models for more/expanded factions. If models were consistently overpowered/undercosted that would be another thing, but that isn't really the case.

Current Moonclan I think relies on their Forgeword units (specifically the colossal squig) , it really gives them their punching power they need as an army. for the most part I feel like their no aversion for them bring FW product into games. I don't know why people are against them bring units that make their army be In a decent place.

[SuperHappyTime]

Feel like the Brits should have learned a valuable lesson about hikes in payment based on geographic location around 240 years ago.

Feel worse for Oz. They’re closer to China than the rest of us.

[Thebiggesthat]

6 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

Well the net positive of all this is last night our store manager / owner has now banned Forgeworld from the store, so at least for us this won't be an issue.

Why is this a positive?

[Arkiham]

On 8/22/2018 at 5:02 PM, Dead Scribe said:

It solves needing an extra layer of army rules and a source of rules you have to memorize to stay competitive so I'm all for its removal right now.

why not just go play chess?

i mean every new army, rule, realm etc is more rules. if thats your attitude you may as well just quit all together, forge world is basically nothing and rarely seen. banning it is just pure spite. 

[Future]

Banning FW from a store is a shame. They make plenty of great looking models and I'd hate to be the guy to walk in there and be told I can't play even though I have a perfectly valid by GW standards army.

 

Edit:

What would cause a store to make such a decision? I've never even met a player in my area that would make that decision, let alone a store.

[Overread]

Personally I don't think its a stores place to ban FW outright. 

Ban or restrict it in tournaments sure, but to outright ban models from FW only for a3rd party store sounds daft. First up the store was never going to profit from FW sales anyway, FW is always direct order so there's no money lost nor gained for the store (in fact if the prices went up enough the store would benefit because gamers would now naturally spend more on the stores products stocked from GW rather than the higher price FW optional models). 

 

It honestly sounds like a store manager playing a bit of a favourites game with the current hype and situation to try and build loyalty from current customers angry at this. 

It's also very short sighted; what if someone from the club DOES buy something from FW at those inflated prices. Now not only are they  paying premium but the store won't even let them play. 

 

So the store gains nothing really from the ban, and might even turn away even just causal players. 

[PlasticCraic]

 

7 hours ago, jackmcmahon said:

Ah, this makes more sense.  Well, guess we just find small scale operations.  Still supports gw and uses globally accepted exchange rate.  If such a person is on here, I want to buy a troggoth hag, haha.

I get stuff sent out all the time mate, you just need to know someone in the UK. 

GW -> Mate's house

Mate's house -> Sunny Melbourne

3 hours ago, SuperHappyTime said:

Feel like the Brits should have learned a valuable lesson about hikes in payment based on geographic location around 240 years ago.

Feel worse for Oz. They’re closer to China than the rest of us.

Not sure I understand that second part?  Why is being close to China a bad thing for Australians?  

[froo]

9 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

 Not sure I understand that second part?  Why is being close to China a bad thing for Australians?  

I think he's trying to insinuate that we're more incentivised to buy recasts than actual models.

 

I guess what one of the underlying principles people are forgetting that this is a luxury hobby where we're spending ridiculous amounts of money on plastic dolls. It's just the nature of the beast of any luxury good, that their pricing structure doesn't necessarily match what the good actually received is. Sure it sucks when they arbitrarily hike the price on things, but thats what we signed up for.

[Cblackaus]

The anger in Australia is palpable - refer to the following from a great hobbyist who was highlighted bun ForgeWorld

[Malakithe]

This is going to drive business away for sure. FW is no where near large enough to take a potential spike in decreased business. Their new quarter is going to be complete ******. 

There are petitions and things going around and FB is exploding. I think bans/boycotts are the answer here. For those that dont believe in that or dont think it works I invite you to look up the complete ****** storm that was EA during the Battlefront 2 payed loot crate time period. The community rebelled and won.

Its pitchfork and angry mob time now bois 

[Kyriakin]

11 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

Has nothing to do with overpowered.  There's plenty of undercosted overpowered stuff in the core game.  Its that its another layer of rules and warscrolls to have to memorize.

Stop trying to encourage the universal banning people's armies, just because you don't seem to realise that you can simply choose to not play against Forgeworld.

[Nin Win]

It's also spillover from the 40k side of things.  Where the points Forgeworld comes out with and the points in the GHB equivalent are pretty divergent.  For a lot of people Forgeworld is just "old GW" in terms of both pricing (both in nominal terms and in anti-foreigner exchange rates) and sloppy rules design.  If someone came back to 40k or AoS because of how much better GW has gotten, Forgeworld is like a remnant of "old GW" fouling it up. 

I won't ever really have the opportunity to find out that Forgeworld really is fine on the rules side of things because they're already so looked down locally that the odds of me seeing any of their stuff is close to zero.

One thing I will say gives me a bad opinion of them is how they handled Necromunda.  Different weapon stats in different books, totally broken campaign systems, white dwarf rules with errors that would have been caught had people simply tried to use them *once* which leads me to believe they were never, ever playtested outside of those already really familiar with how they "should" work.  Compare the changes made to the more recent Genestealer Cult rules with how they appeared in White Dwarf.  Oh and spreading the rules across a million supplements reminds me very much of GW's dark days of endless codex supplements instead of putting the rules you need in one battletome or codex like how it is now.  So I definitely understand when local people just say Forgeworld is like the last hold out of "old GW" mindset and practices.

I totally get why people simply don't trust Forgeworld on the rules side of things.  I don't.