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I mean, it's not really much different than Comic-Con, E3, Blizzcon, etcetera , and those are single-place events that take place only once a year.
The gatherings will be larger, and the events better funded... because they won't be spreading thin their finances.
And I suspect GW has taken a large hit in attendance as well.
GW's cost to put a single Games Day event has got to be huge. And when you factor in lower attendance rates and lower sales at the event, etc ... well at what point do you make the business decision to just cut your losses?
Personally, I would love to see GW put on a Games Day on the East and West coasts'. But heck, if all they can afford to do right now is a single 'kick-butt' games day and it's nowhere near me, I'm thankful they're willing to invest in that.
Make a good business decision and put on a good event worth paying the price for attendance and people will actually show up.
Very well said. Multiple events diluted the resources, even when the budgets were higher. With the HQ being in Maryland they used to really pull out all the stops to make Games Day US terrific. Once they had the hassle of putting on large events far from the HQ even the local Baltimore event lost some of its "big show" feel.
Chicago is close to ? Green Bay, Milwakee, Indianoplis,Windsor Canada Cleveland, Lansing, oh Yeah Detroit!
Chicago is a Not the Location
Chicago Loses. Kinda like the Olympics
I'd like to play in a tourney at Games Day...
Not sure if Adepticon and other independent tourneys would be equal?
Games Day Chicago on the other hand, while entertaining, because I got a picture of Jervis hitting me with a planetstrike book, just didn't have as much fun to it.
Ooh, with only one games day they can afford to go crazy with the door prizes and such too.
I was hooked. I will be there again next year... provided the misses says yes :).
this year I missed out on a lot,gaming,people,sneak-peaks.....plus an kickass mini because GW didn't want to hold one in LA!
I agree with zingbaby if there's going to be only one its most likely going to be in maryland and there's no way I'm going to make it there
This past GamesDay Baltimore was an abomination compared to the previous GamesDays I've been to. (and that's not even taking into consideration the fact that they did not include Tournament gaming.)
I'm not entirely certain what GW is thinking.
However, if they have a Games Day Canada and Games Day US event then all might be well since Toronto is very doable for me whereas Chicago and Baltimore require a bit more effort, time and money.
Either that or its GW punishing you for that unpleasantness in 1776, bwahaha! Serves you right.
(for the slow of wit, the second sentence is a joke)
Although at Chicago this year, there were only two (? It may have been three) banners in the competition. :(
I think that games day used to be a thank you to GW customers. But the fan base is shrinking. It's time for the focus of games day to shift. Games day needs to become focused on growing the customer base, reaching out to new gamers at the same time that they say thank you to long time customers.
The days of GW being able to do this by themselves are obviously over. It's time to change games day and make it better than ever
GW focus on GenCon? That's like saying Metallica should stop doing their own tours, and climb back on a "monsters of rock" venue where they share the stage with a bunch of other bands.
Sure, a lot of other gamers go to GenCon - but a lot of those gamers have no interest in GW - they know it, and GW knows it. So why join a convention and let your (GW) target market sample other stuff as well? Much better to focus on events, that focus on your product. It's just that simple.
Anyways if you went by the bits booth or the warstore's booth the last couple of years I think it'd be pretty obviously foolhardy to claim there was no interest in GW games at GenCon.
HA HA!
Ditching it altogether is just another "up yours" to their customers who like tournaments. But hey, who needs a dedicated base of people willing to pay thousands of dollars annually for new armies and events to play them in?
Go to anything else you GET a Hell of lot more. Atleast a Sword and Product and Plaque
Whatever marketing company set up that one should have had their contract pulled on the spot. I've never been more insulted by a poll in my life.
I mean, thery couldn't have more alienated their veteran customers if they tried.
From working at numerous games days, I can tell you its not that hard of a setup and breakdown. Practically all the game tables are packed into crates and back on trucks in 2 hours, the store is usually empty, and the longest breakdown is the Golden Daemon displays.
I think the crappy nature of recent games days has been due to the lack of forthcoming information and sneak peaks.
No it isn’t
Euro population - 831.4 million
US population – 305.5 million
I know the US is almost as big a Europe but there'll be border issues and the fact that compared to the US travelling around Europe is very expensive . Not to mention the problems of having 40+ national languages.
A publically traded company operates with a vastly different set of rules than a gaming club, especially when we get down to the expenses of running an event. It makes far better financial sense for GW to support dozens of events run by gaming clubs than to soend the same money on a single event run by GW. I applaud GW for dropping an expensive limited circuit in favor of promoting and assisting independent events. This path provides more opportunity for competitive players to participate in events that qualify for the circuit championships, which only helps to develop a more competitive scene.
Now I just need to find tournaments besides BoLSCon that judge almost completely on battle, and I'm good to go.
Europe 3.9 Million Sq Miles
USA 3.8 Million Sq Miles
Per capita the UK spends 50p per head of population on GW products, Asia Pacific 40p, Europe 18p, America 13p.
From GW perspective the US probably isn't buying enough to justify multiple GDs at present. In my view it would make more sense to forego official GW events and have high profile booths at other big events.
All information can be verified by looking in the 2008/2009 GW financial reports, google for it.
Which isn't very good considering that the US has 5 times the population of the UK.
Games Days are held in the same place as that country's HQ because of the aforementioned reasons listed above (extra support staff), and are better off staying at that one spot because the alternative requires them to transport all the tables and product and Forge World and FLY all the needed HQ staff and guests to each Games Day in North America; the bottom-line cost of have multiple Games Days in one country puts a HUGE strain on the event's ability to break even (never mind profit).
Sure, I suspect that the numbers being thrown around while I sat mute listening to the whole thing might have had a little bit of padding. But I heard the numbers of what break even was, and I saw what the day's total sales were. I'm not at all surprised by this move on GW's part.
Here's hoping that with only ONE set of expenses, they'll be able to make future Games Days as fantastic as the old ones are told of being.
(I suspect that there's also an element of diminishing returns at work as well; I DO know that every year's Toronto Games Day had lower attendence than the year before...no matter what they did to gussy up the event....though I'm totally unaware of the numbers of the last two Games Days, the ones that were held at a smaller venue. )
Getting from LA to Chicago or to the East Coast, or vice versa is actually not that hard to do.
And getting a "centralized" location in North America that is "convenient" for many is just about impossible given the size of the continent.
So ... no matter where they put it, odds are high you'll have to fly.
And I just got back from the Spiel 2009 event in Germany, and guess which company wasn't there? Games Workshop! And they normally visit the event every year...
It's a guess, but plausible...
Why would they run a 100 table tournament in July and then do the same thing again in August? The 100 table tournament in July is a fact.
2) My post was not a guess ;)
Just thought that it made sense since they were essentially cutting out all except one show for fiscal reasons. Piggy-backing onto the other convention would save even more money for them... Thanks for the info!
Sometimes, in order to keep the company in profit and growing, unpopular decisions will need to be made. In the long run a reduction in the number of GDs will not harm GW or the hobby. I think one of the European GDs could stand to be scrapped too, to be honest. Maybe have one GD per geographic area (Britain, Europe, America, Asia Pacific).
On a side note, from reading your posts, I've come to the conclusion that you're either a GW employee or a zit-faced fanboy. Either way, it's considered a lack of tact to call names on forums. If you ever find yourself in Mississippi, look me up and we can settle any differences that we have on the tabletop.
Disclaimer: VonKoeder is my brother, and we have talked at great length about GW's lack of customer service.
But the fact remains that GW is a corporation that has to meet global demand for its products. It is easy for us players to sit back and make nasty remarks, but they have genuine difficulties to deal with. They need to be profitable to SURVIVE, not just to please stockholders. It is no good GW doing everything it can to please its hobbyists (which will never happen) if the company goes bankrupt.
I don't have any major differences with you, you express yourself politely and rationally. I don't disagree that GW has poor customer service, to an an almost inexcusable extent. I'm just sick of certain people who criticise everything little thing GW does and assume that because they feel that way, the entire consumer base does. Hell on another forum you had people predicting GW making a loss in 2009 because of the 'blastscape and empire greatsword pricing fiasco'. Instead they have their third or fourth most profitable year on record,and 90% debt reduction.
I'm not a GW employee, and I only had the odd skin blemish in my teenage years. I don't like a lot of GW policies, but I understand why they feel they need to do them. And given how they have turned the company around in the past few years, it is working.
It isn't due to resources, with the exception of maybe patience.
It has to do with another company giving a skavens @$$ about there base.
I understand the companies direction and there push for a quick buck - apoc., larger armies, horde armies, ect. Those are not incompatible with service and support. The complete lack of effort to support the simplest issues befuddles even me, the die hard half a chapter owning and two matching alien races of nearly equal size fan boy.
I am not the smartest guy in the land but even I can come up with good balanced fixes and a simple cheep way to implement them so that the surge in customer base has more staying power and draw more people into the hobby.
But, if that's what it takes for them to stay afloat and keep making awesome stuff, I don't have as much of a problem with it. Just wish they'd start drumming up interest in stuff earlier than a month out from release...