Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on Dec 2, 2018 23:09:16 GMT
Anyway, at this point a sellout and a reboot would not surprise me, it's how I felt since the PG program closed. But, more than releasing more fluff. More than fixing unused models. More than killing CID "power creep". What this game needs is a serious cut of SKU bloat and repackaging it in a FLGS friendly manner. Which is probably something the new management will do "we're not wasting anymore resources on things nobody is playing and nobody wants to buy". You've mentioned this a few times in various threads; what would that cutting entail? I know nothing about how all this sort of thing works. The implication is that you just go 'X Y Z are no longer in production or legal in game', but what happens with existing stock? Could this trimming be achieved by repackaging? If you could only buy WGI as a single box containing a 10 man unit with UA and 3 rockets, you've effectively cut the three entities down to one, right? Or are you saying it needs to be more severe than that? It's a combination of both. Think something along the lines of Theme boxes, but make it a permanent line. Also consolidate more SKUs into boxes, like 4 to 5 solos per box. Design all units with a common "base chassis" and package all variants in the same box. And yes, even cut entire lines from production, similar to Magics "block" format. Sadly, existing stock just has to be written off as a loss.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Dec 2, 2018 23:53:08 GMT
Warmachine has definitely increased in price significantly over the 6 years I have played, if I wasn't already commited to it I could see that as a big barrier to entry, especially when compared to 40k
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Post by Big Fat Troll on Dec 3, 2018 0:28:09 GMT
What I would do if I won the Powerball and bought the company:
1) Get Schick and Pagani back, cut Wilson and Soles 2) Reinstate the Press Gangers. Hire a lawyer if need be. 3) Contract with Indie Game Alliance to help with marketing and hire a full-time PR person who will actually talk to people. 4) Relocate the company to a cheaper facility more conducive to different departments mingling and communicating. Yes, possibly in a totally different metro like Austin or Kansas City. (I still have no idea why Johnson County is not full of game companies.) 5) Take a critical look at what products to cut and what to keep. Streamline SKUs, yes. Remove old models from the game, no. Old stuff can usually be found on the secondary market, but if there is demand that isn't being supplied then maybe consider producing more. 6) Look at materials and supply chains. Surely something could be better. Sometimes even the Post Office will cut deals on shipping. 7) Not a totally new edition, but a bit of a soft reset. D&D did a 3.5 and I think Warmachine can too, but that is too big to discuss in much detail without a new thread.
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Post by chewie on Dec 3, 2018 0:59:03 GMT
Get Schick and Pagani back, cut Wilson and Soles Where are you seeing that Shick is leaving / has left?
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Post by greytemplar on Dec 3, 2018 1:14:55 GMT
What this game needs is a serious cut of SKU bloat and repackaging it in a FLGS friendly manner. No. SKU bloat is never a reason for a game dying. Any miniature game is always going to have far far more miniatures than any FLGS can carry, even ones with relatively streamlined lines. The only negative SKU bloat can really have is on the company itself if they themselves can't handle the stock pressure. The retailers aren't going to be able to carry the entire line, so there is no need to try. Besides, every FLGS I've been to has been able to take orders for anything not in the store. The FLGS just needs to concern itself with carrying each faction's starter box and 2-3 common boxes for each faction. For PP, that would be 14 factions x4 products each for a total of 56 items. Thats a very doable thing, and if needed a store could cut out the minor stuff like Cruicible Guard, Cephalyx, Minions, etc... to save some space.
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faelin
Junior Strategist
Posts: 121
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Post by faelin on Dec 3, 2018 1:20:04 GMT
Is it safe to assume their paint line has been cut? Because I've been waiting for a restock of brass balls for 18 months. I finally found a site online that had some and 'survival bunkered' that shit. Bought like 13 pots so that I'll never run out no matter how much I use it.
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Post by Charistoph on Dec 3, 2018 1:26:54 GMT
You're right. what I should have said was "if PP is in any kind of real financial trouble, I think the loss of the PG is the biggest contributor to them". cause that's what I meant, and it totally didn't come out that way. Fair enough. While I still don't consider the loss of Press Gangers to be a catalyst for any of PP's possible financial troubles, it certainly wasn't in place to help recover from them. It did help them evade another possible financial trouble when you consider how entitled some people (especially Americans) can get. I would argue that a faction with less than 10% of its roster as playable models is unplayable. Orboros survived on wormwood and una 2 and the rotterhorn. the rest of that faction, for a long while, was trash. trolls lived on....ummm....i guess the mauler? before themes ragnor was good. after themes, it was really bad. Don't get me started on skorne. that faction was atrocious, and let's be fair, legion wouldn't have survived without lylyth 3 heading up their tournament scene. This may sound like semantics (which it IS, look up the word), but the term "playable" gets used FAR too much when "desirable" should be the operative word. If you are coming in from outside and heard that, "Skorne is unplayable," you would think that it is so broken that even deploying an army of them would be a horrendous chore. Before the Great Errata, Skorne WERE playable. In fact most of their skornergy was lost so they were far more playable than ever before. However, they lost a lot of their good tricks along with it, which left them bland and boring to play. So, playable, but not desirable. and the balance between hordes and WM was pretty poor, and that is an understatement. Mk 2 was far worse than Mk 3 in that regard. Edit: What this game needs is a serious cut of SKU bloat and repackaging it in a FLGS friendly manner. No. SKU bloat is never a reason for a game dying. Any miniature game is always going to have far far more miniatures than any FLGS can carry, even ones with relatively streamlined lines. The only negative SKU bloat can really have is on the company itself if they themselves can't handle the stock pressure. The retailers aren't going to be able to carry the entire line, so there is no need to try. Besides, every FLGS I've been to has been able to take orders for anything not in the store. The FLGS just needs to concern itself with carrying each faction's starter box and 2-3 common boxes for each faction. For PP, that would be 14 factions x4 products each for a total of 56 items. Thats a very doable thing, and if needed a store could cut out the minor stuff like Cruicible Guard, Cephalyx, Minions, etc... to save some space. There are ways to reduce sku bloat without reducing model count in most factions. Many units have a base unit which just swap weapons and a maybe a head here or there. Most Warjacks and Beasts are this way as well. Where you run in to issues are the Characters and solos. Some of the multi-variants will be easy, but let's face it, Xerxis1 and Xerxis2 are not really something to single box like you could with Steelheads or Praetorians.
It's actually one of the things that has allowed GW to be so diverse. That and not over-extending on the blisters for each army. Conversely, Infinity is such a pain to stock.
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Post by cascadiankovnik on Dec 3, 2018 2:22:12 GMT
What I would do if I won the Powerball and bought the company: ... 2) Reinstate the Press Gangers. Hire a lawyer if need be. ... I keep seeing this. Guys, the Press Gang isn't coming back. Anything that remotely looked like it and gave PP enough direction and control to tell people how to do the job and stop A-holes from being giant jerks (giving the PG crew / Privateer a bad name) is always going to be a huge risk from a US employment law perspective. Let alone CA, NY or other employee friendly state laws. Giving compensation in product instead of cash is still well into the danger zone. You can hire a lawyer, but after the first one runs screaming from the room the second will tell you the same thing the lawyers PP probably consulted said. Kill it with fire, and don't say another word about that Magic suit or employment law until far after the statute of limitation for private action and any potential audit period for a state unemploment agencies. Here's a quick link that shows the level of incredulity employment law professionals gave to Wizards defense of their judge program: blog.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/top-legal-news/magic-card-game-judges-sue-for-lost-wages-claim-to-be-employees/Now, I do think PP could do a MUCH better job designing some sort of compliant replacement program. All those prior PG supporting 'how to build a community' resources could be more widely shared, stores could be incented to run journeyman leagues instead of told to buy a kit, etc etc.
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on Dec 3, 2018 3:30:50 GMT
5) Take a critical look at what products to cut and what to keep. Streamline SKUs, yes. Remove old models from the game, no. Old stuff can usually be found on the secondary market, but if there is demand that isn't being supplied then maybe consider producing more. I was with you until this point. You are talking about a business model that 1.- Is spending money by adding additional design overhead due to keeping legacy models updated 2.- A cost that won't be recouped because you are hoping the secondary market covers demand, and 3.- If it doesn't, spin up production lines for old molds and sculpts. Let's be realistic, the first thing any new owner would do is cut the fat by eliminating SKUs with bad margins.
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skormedlover87
Junior Strategist
Desperately searching for days off to game...
Posts: 517
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Post by skormedlover87 on Dec 3, 2018 4:27:31 GMT
So question, is WMH more popular in Europe than the US? It certainly seems to be more, enthusiastic there. From a purely monetary, health of the company standpoint would it make sense to decamp to the Eurozone? Maybe this is just my observations and holds little to no actual evidence. At the least you'd think they would look at getting small BAHI production houses set up in other regions. Europe, Australia (they're good are they a big market?) even Canada.
Sorry it's a bit of a non sequitur but I'm just thinking about how the company would look to save itself. If the US market I'd dying (and I think it might be) and that's being caused or accelerated by the lack of a Press Gang what do you do?
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Post by Big Fat Troll on Dec 3, 2018 5:08:45 GMT
5) Take a critical look at what products to cut and what to keep. Streamline SKUs, yes. Remove old models from the game, no. Old stuff can usually be found on the secondary market, but if there is demand that isn't being supplied then maybe consider producing more. I was with you until this point. You are talking about a business model that 1.- Is spending money by adding additional design overhead due to keeping legacy models updated 2.- A cost that won't be recouped because you are hoping the secondary market covers demand, and 3.- If it doesn't, spin up production lines for old molds and sculpts. Let's be realistic, the first thing any new owner would do is cut the fat by eliminating SKUs with bad margins. So are you saying that if a model is unpopular then it's no longer allowed in tournaments? That's where I don't see what you're getting at. Then there are odd cases like Trollkin Scouts and Dire Troll Blitzers are not played in tourneys, but Scouts are there own SKU while the Blitzer is not, so the Blitzer is still tourney-legal but Scouts are not? People throw fits when the models they own are no longer powerful in-game. I think it would be worse if those were not allowed in the game at all. And they have already sort of retired distribution for a lot of those SKUs you mention, IIRC sometime last year. What I really had more in mind, though, and I suppose more to the point was to give some serious scrutiny to the incidental bits like pins, maquettes, card games, and Mini Crate and cut what isn't making money. If it actually is, that's fine, but if it's not, well... they've lost too many bets already. And see if stuff like T-shirts and coffee mugs can be licensed out. That's what I mean. Seriously, browse the store site sometime and just wander around and make note of all the stuff that makes you ask "Does anybody even buy this?"
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Post by aregoth21 on Dec 3, 2018 5:48:06 GMT
Get Schick and Pagani back, cut Wilson and Soles Where are you seeing that Shick is leaving / has left? I saw someone else mention that somewhere too, and I can’t see a source for it anywhere. Pagani left, Lyle Lowery left, and JR left. I don’t see anything about Shick leaving though...
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on Dec 3, 2018 6:12:10 GMT
Careful considerations would have to be taken to see what gets cut. You would have to weigh the actual development costs of updating the rules, maintaining the old molds, availability of prime materials, printing new boxes, etc. Versus the opportunity costs of just investing all those development resources into producing brand new stuff. Yes, people would throw fits, that's very clear to me. But it is very unreasonable to maintain the level of balance Warmachine players expect with an evergreen catalogue. Not to mention that PP is notorious for their supply chain troubles. Cut the amount of merchandise they have to move, both in the States and abroad, and you'll mitigate a lot of the current frustrations. The overall health of the game and company is what's needed, and I for one am willing to sacrifice my AKs on that alter (for example).
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Post by mcdermott on Dec 3, 2018 6:21:08 GMT
Careful considerations would have to be taken to see what gets cut. You would have to weigh the actual development costs of updating the rules, maintaining the old molds, availability of prime materials, printing new boxes, etc. Versus the opportunity costs of just investing all those development resources into producing brand new stuff. Yes, people would throw fits, that's very clear to me. But it is very unreasonable to maintain the level of balance Warmachine players expect with an evergreen catalogue. Not to mention that PP is notorious for their supply chain troubles. Cut the amount of merchandise they have to move, both in the States and abroad, and you'll mitigate a lot of the current frustrations. The overall health of the game and company is what's needed, and I for one am willing to sacrifice my AKs on that alter (for example). Eh, if there was actually a sign that balance was worsening this would be a strong argument against an evergreen catalogue, but thats not the case really, signs point to balance actually doing much better than it was last edition. The fact that people aren't happy with it, despite this increased level of balance of tournament placings is another data point in the "competitive balance seems to be the enemy of mass enjoyment" that i've noticed in many competitive games.
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isotope
Junior Strategist
Posts: 634
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Post by isotope on Dec 3, 2018 6:33:16 GMT
Hiring a PR person who was good at their job and commuicated with the community would be amazing. It's so infuriating watching the live stream and someone asks a question and the wills respond with " not our department, lol" the proper PR response either answers the question or says "I'm not really sure, ill look into it and get back with you". All of their live stream feels like the AV club at a high school trying to push new models more than a successful company.
Not sure if anyone around here plays Path of Exile but their community manager Bex is great with the community from teasing releases, communicating info, answering questions, memes, build of the week videos( this would be so cool to see for WMH, the podcasts kind of do it when they bring on a con winner)... PP needs someone like that to keep spirits up and build hype which would sell way more models than the current strategy.
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