Desslock, how do you explain Bose? I’m fairly certain they set the prices that Circuit City could charge when I worked there. Also, any coupons from major retailers that carry those products normally do not apply to Bose products.
You can’t fix prices per se. But, there are other ways to reach the same end result.
Price fixing is done by a market, not a manufacturer. In other words, a whole market cannot get together and agree to set a product that they all make (in supposed competition with each other) a certain price, that is higher than it’s value. This is part of anti-trust anti-monopoly practices. However, a single manufacturer can set whatever price it wants on its own products. The market takes care of that through competition. IF GW wants to set their prices high, start your own rival company and steal their business. But you can’t stop them from setting the prices on their own products.
That said, I don’t think they can legally force another company to sell things at a price they set. However, as said above, they can refuse to sell to that company, which causes the same thing.
Hearing this really doesn’t surprise me- they’ve been behaving like this for years.
When the game store in my part of town closed a few years ago, I got to thinking I might try my hand at opening one myself. Did a bunch of research to find out how viable something like that was, and ended up not doing it because I just don’t understand the CCG and miniatures markets, and that’s where it seems the bread 'n butter is- but I digress.
While doing research, I found that If you want to sell GW stuff you pretty much have to order from them. They do sell to other distributors, but they charge them the same amount they charge retailers. This results in a situation that, to make a profit on GW goods, the distributor has to mark them up substatially, and the retailer who orders from a third-party distributor (as opposed to GW itself) makes even less on their goods. So why not just order direct from GW? Well, for starters, they have ridiculously high minimum order requirements, both in terms of actual dollar amount and actual amount of goods, and their ‘wholesale’ prices are quite a bit higher than the average in the industry, leaving you with much smaller than average profit margins on their goods.
Another notable practice included ‘start up displays’- if they were coming out with a new line of products (or more likely given their history, repackaging and relaunching an old one), and you wanted to carry it, you had to buy rather large minimum amount of all the new stuff on offer. For example, if they were launching Warhammer Fantasy Battle 35th ed., and you wanted to carry it, you’d have to order 25 boxed sets, and at least 10 of each blister available- and if you didn’t want that much (lack of space in shop, customers who wanted to see it firsthand before spending $100 a pop on a new game, etc.), well, tough beans- you don’t get to carry it.
And as a side note, my brother works with inventory and distrabution for a major outdoor outfitting co-op. He’s one of the people that chooses which skis and snowboards go on the rack a year or so ahead of time, and make sure they get there. I remember him telling me a year or two ago that most of the major ski/equipment manufacturers had had a ‘no online sales’ policy for years- I don’t think it’s changed much.
And they’re probably right about that.
I was a huge fan of “Space Hulk” until the EA game came out. At that point, having been able to play literally hundreds of scenarios without the time consuming set up, I was done.
I boxed up all my hundreds of dollars worth of stuff and sold it all off.
Your Power Pill[/quote]
Same basic thing happened to me after I played “Dark Omen” (One of the best games nobody ever played). Computer War Games have really killed my desire to play table top games. When I can complete an entire secenaro of Conbat Mission in the time it takes just to set up a miniture tabletop battle it just doesn’t seem worth it, life is to short. Sad, I love the look and aura of a well done table top game, but I am afraid they will slowly fade away. Each year when I go to the local game cons the miniatures room is always a bit less crowded then the last year.
Interesting tidbit, GW currently has a MMORP is developemt for their Fantasy world… Go figure, $50.00 monthly fee? :P
Cheers,
Ron
Dark Omen was great! I actually played all the way through it on the PSX without a mouse, and I liked it so much that I’ve been looking for the PC version to play ever since, because I hear it has multiplayer-build-your-own-army support (no server browser, but it would be good for LAN games…).
Oh, and as an addendum to my earlier post, I just wanted to say that I don’t dislike GW, just some of their business practices. A few years ago I actually even went so far as to do a re-write their Epic40k rules (not the original Epic Space Marine/Titans rules, but the much cooler completely-rebuilt-from-the-ground-up set they came out with later) to work with their Fantasy Battle setting, using some neat 6mm figs I found on line. I bought four armies worth of the figures (Skaven, Undead, Lizardmen, Dark Elves), in metal for less than what GW charges for one of it’s boxed game sets.
Ahhh. Good times. :D
Too bad we don’t have the time/interest to play stuff like that anymore.
Can’t say I am shocked by this at all. I used to run my own shop a few years ago, and the greatest head-ache came every Monday morning at 10:30 when my GW rep would call. Only way I can describe it is to have your own personal car sales-rep that would NEVER leave you alone.
As to the sales strat they use. Pretty smart if you ask me. I cannot think of many tabletop games that can rival the GW Warhammer name. Couple of guys pulled off some great games, but could not pull off the same support that GW did. Hence they damn near own the mini’s tabletop. There was no “min” you HAD to buy, but the discounts that you got were greater the more you spent. So in the end you spent a crap load of cash anyway, but just got more stuff to sell to rich little kids (and to be fair, GW does put in a nice markup for the retailer). Plus going back to my wonderful GW rep, he had mentioned something about them wanting to stop internet sales from outside sources a couple years ago.
And lastly, my all time hands down favorite GW game was bloodbowl. Cheap, fun, easy to play, and great tourny memories.
–gsw
That’s not the only prohibition on price fixing - there are also price fixing restrictions relating to the relationship between the manufacturer and its distributers. A manufacturer cannot require a distributer to sell the manufacturer’s products at a specified price – that discretion has to be left to the distributer/reseller.
The manufacturer can charge the distributer/resellers whatever it wants, but they can’t oblige the distributer/reseller to pass on that pricing to retail consumers, or require distributers to charge retail customers a minimum price.
Stefan
And lastly, my all time hands down favorite GW game was bloodbowl. Cheap, fun, easy to play, and great tourny memories.
–gsw
Oh yeah, I was huge fan. 2nd or 3rd edition?
Does anyone know if GW is profitable? I mean really profitable? It seems like an expensive hobby so I imagine that they would be.
They, by and large, are the miniatures market right now.
Having spent the last year doing paper game related work I can tell you that the stories of their ruthless business practices are constantly jaw dropping.
They, by and large, are the miniatures market right now.
Having spent the last year doing paper game related work I can tell you that the stories of their ruthless business practices are constantly jaw dropping.
Your Power Pill[/quote]
What about Wizkids? They’re doing ok with minis.
They, by and large, are the miniatures market right now.
Having spent the last year doing paper game related work I can tell you that the stories of their ruthless business practices are constantly jaw dropping.
Your Power Pill[/quote]
Is Ral Partha long gone? I loved some of their miniature designs…
Different sort of market, I think. WizKid’s makes miniature games for people that don’t like miniature games, essentially. Or at least people that don’t like the painting miniatures part. The quality of their miniatures is nowhere near the quality of the GW stuff, but their demographic is less concerned about that sort of thing. I’ve known a lot of people that play Warhammer, and painting miniatures tends to be a big part of the appeal for them.
The WizKids minis were and are a brilliant idea, though. There are plenty of people out there interested in miniature gaming that lack the time or the motivation to paint armies of miniatures, create terrain, or learn complex rules. WizKids saw the opportunity and grabbed it, and I’ll bet the folks at GW are kicking themselves for not thinking of it first.
You’re right. But those pre-painted “collectable” $7/pack figures are a totally different market then unpainted $20/pack hunks of pewter.
Warhammer makes crazy demands for tournaments. “Only official figures, and they must be painted” or you can pack up your tackle box and go home. But players don’t even bat an eye. They just buy more and more.
I was never that hardcore. I enjoyed the 40K universe and backstory for a while, but then I got tired of the endless “relentless culling of the weak for the greater good against a merciless enemy” storyline and moved on right about the time the Tyranids showed up.
Yeah you can set the retail price of your product if you make it.
All paper and dice game companies used to do this (block web sales), because online sales hurt the local stores, most of whom barely scrape by as it is. The market got so bad a few years ago that my favorite game store in Worcester, MA, was burned down by its owner for insurance purposes.
I know White Wolf used to do it, because I asked them when they first had a web page. The companies (excluding WOTC, who makes DND) are still iffy about web sales, White Wolf even asks you to go to your local shop instead of buying from their web site.
Most of that is through Amazon, and most of it is WOTC (DnD). As it has always been: as DnD goes, so goes the industry.
GW has/had a virtual monopoly on games in the UK, and are very popular in Europe, where RPGs and Tabletop Strats are very expensive. So GW is used to setting its prices and getting its own way. Some friends of mine and I were trying to start our own game store once, took one look at the Warhammer sales agreement (back when they did their American distro out of Baltimore), and just forgot about being an official vendor. The pricing was obscene, and I’m sure it hasn’t improved.
That company makes great product, but they shoot themselves in the foot continuously by taking a great game that could be as ubiquitous as Stratego or something and charging $50 for it. They remind me very much of Adobe: if they’d charge $50 a license for Photoshop, everyone would pay. Instead they charge 10x that and no one does.
Yeah, actually, they can and do set retail prices. Why else would all publishing companies print prices on books? If it were illegal, they’d be admitting to a crime. They tell the store “you’ll charge what we say, or we won’t sell it to you.” What they CAN’T do is get together with Wizkids, WOTC, Avalon Hill and White Wolf and set a price that they will all use for their games. That would be collusion, thus the varying prices for different game products.
This is nothing new for Games Workshop or the tabletop industry, and it’s not likely to change. Like I said, they have a strong hold on the market in Britain and they absolutely rape the Germans with their prices, they’ll do it as long as they can get away with it, and that’s likely to be forever. They’re robbing themselves of sales and probably some profits in the long term, but they seem happy with what they have now.
/jeep/
…and I’d just as soon they didn’t make computer games, it seems you have to be pretty lucky to get your franchise well-translated these days.
They, by and large, are the miniatures market right now.[/quote]
Reaper Miniatures still does o.k. I love their stuff.
Yeah, actually, they can and do set retail prices. Why else would all publishing companies print prices on books? If it were illegal, they’d be admitting to a crime.[/quote]
We’re getting redundant here – it is illegal. They post prices on books that are suggested retail prices, but the distributer is not obligated to adhere to them (and often they don’t, but providing discounts or mark-ups through their own stickers).
They tell the store “you’ll charge what we say, or we won’t sell it to you.”
No, that’s definitely illegal.
To be clear - if they are selling directly (i.e., not using a distributer or reseller), they can do whatever they want, and to the extent the person is acting as their agent (not an independent distributer), the manufacturer is effectively directly selling.
But you cannot tell a distributer to charge a specific price – that violates price fixing legislation in most jurisdictions.
Here’s an example of the statutory prohibition, which I happen to have in front of me:
“No person who is engaged in the business of producing or supplying a product shall, directly or indirectly, (a) by agreement, threat, promise or like means, attempt to influence upward, or discourage the reduction of, the price at which any other person supplies or offers a product; or (b) refuse to supply a product to or otherwise discriminate against any other person because of the low pricing policy of that other person”.
Examples of prohibited resale price activities are:
Of course, none of the foregoing should be relied upon as legal advice; seek your own counsel, blah blah blah.
They make nice stuff, they stay in business. I’d be surprised if their sales are 1% of what GW makes yearly.
They make nice stuff, they stay in business. I’d be surprised if their sales are 1% of what GW makes yearly.[/quote]
Heh, that’s a fair point. The Lord of the Rings stuff has been a great success, which shouldn’t be surprising but kinda is, since traditionally that brand hasn’t been as valuable as you’d expect given its pioneering position in the genre.
I’m not mistaking what you said for something else. I’ll tell you plainly how it works, regardless of the laws:
Illegal? Legal? Guess what: At your local supermarket, Coke and Pepsi trade off discounting week to week, and they fix their prices, too. A law that is not enforced is effectively nonexistant, so cut and paste a whole bunch of regulations in here for all the good it does.
No small store wants to lose their business to someone else, so in what is a cottage industry, they will charge what is suggested, and can feel confident that no one else will undercut them, precisely because the game companies tell everyone what to charge. Unfortunately, it’s necessary in that industry, because the niche shops are where RPGs (and comics) are sold, and where the fan communities grow around.
Illegal or not, there is no price variance on paper-and-dice RPGs in the US. What costs $30 at one store costs $30 everywhere else, too. AFAIK, the only exception to this is WOTC, who now belongs to Hasbro, and has been (occasionally) cutting deals with large resellers like Amazon.
/jeep/
…the only discounts on games I’ve seen in a shop is when they’re going to stop carrying them, are going out of business or they’re clearing stock.