Интерес представлет в основном перовая часть пслания, так как часть того что там написано не применимо для нас, у нас GW нет.
Dear Simon
Many thanks for your email. It was good to hear from a fellow dad who runs a gaming club. Good luck with that. I’ve always found the UK club team very helpful – Matt and Bek are always worth a call.
Well, let’s try to address the points you’ve raised on value for money and support for games.
When I joined the company in 2000, we hadn’t had a price rise for 5 years and I regularly received letters about how expensive our products were! I’m afraid it goes with the territory. Over the last five years, we have put some price increases through which probably average out at about 2.5% per annum. As a businessman, you’ll know that this is below inflation so in real terms our products have actually declined in price. We don’t talk about this because it’s not an argument we’re going to win, but that is the reality.
Is the hobby expensive? Yes. But no more than most hobbies [i also play golf for my sins!]. We make the best miniatures in the world. That doesn’t come cheap. Ask Aston Martin.
Like yourself, I’m more interested in value for money and there we have been working really hard:
Over the last 5 years we have invested hugely in converting metal core and elite units into plastic, offering more accessories and options on sprues than every before. The difference between my current Bretonnian army and my original one is a great example of how much more choice we have now.
We’ve introduced battle forces and battalion boxes for every race to offer a discount of 20%+ for anyone starting up an army.
We’ve also reduced the price of a core game from £50 to £40 while increasing the number of miniatures in each one: we had 100 miniatures in Battle for Skull Pass as you know, worth over £100!
Expansions like Apocalypse have given us the opportunity to offer big bundles of units giving substantial value for money for hobbyists e.g. my Emperor’s Fist Tank Company was a fantastic deal – and was simply awesome in our Club’s Apocalypse game on Sunday.
We’ve even taken some of our most popular Forgeworld kits and put them into plastic at less than half the price e.g the Tau Piranha, Baneblade and …
Are we offering value for money? Well I know we are seeking to, by improving the quality, quantity and limiting price increases as far as possible. Obviously, if you’re like me you’ll want more miniatures of better quality and at as low a price as possible [so your wife won’t notice] but hey, we’re doing the best we can. And don’t forget that the price of the product also covers all the free activities we offer in our hobby centres – painting lessons, gaming lessons, modeling (зарплату Руслана) and painting facilities. I wish my golf lessons were free.
On specialist games, we do offer a lower level of support than for Warhammer, 40k and Lord of the Rings. The fact is that Specialist Games need less support and are still played up and down the country at good gaming clubs. At the club I run, we have had a Bloodbowl League, Aeronautica campaign and a Warhammer Ahoy event in the last 12 months. We downloaded everything we needed from the website, bought the miniatures online and had a huge amount of fun. That’s what Specialist Games were designed for – a bit of fun to surprise and delight experienced gamers. But the rest of the time we have been playing Warhammer, 40k and Lord of the Rings. Incidentally, it would be great if more gamers did what you and I do and supported them through clubs. I recently went to the NAAFBloodbowl Tournament at Warhammer World and they run an amazing tournament themselves just for the joy of it. All they ask us to do is host it, which is just great.
So I think it’s simply a matter of using our resources appropriately. Would we like to do more? Of course we would. Personally I’d like to have 7 days a week free to think up more ways of making my club exciting. But given the resources we have, we deploy them as best we can to provide great service in our Hobby Centres, great product that we release every month, and great activities that can be run through our venues across the world. As an investor, I believe if you keep doing the right things for long enough, success is inevitable. Why not come up to the AGM in September and see for yourself. We have a tour of the site and you can see what we are doing behind the scenes. I think you’ll find it reassuring.
Anyway, I hope I’ve addressed the points you’ve raised. We love the hobby and want it to be the best it can be. We won’t always get it right, but it won’t be for lack of trying. Good luck with the Gaming Club. Give the UK Club guys a call. I hope you have as much fun running it as I do. And if you ever bring them up to Warhammer World, drop me a line and I’ll come and see you.
Cheers
