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<blockquote data-quote="Glyfair" data-source="post: 3811502" data-attributes="member: 53">While I've never been a fan of GW, an interview with the head of the US operations on ICV2 was interesting.&nbsp; It's never been a secret that GW feels that getting new players introduced to the &quot;GW Experience&quot; has been the key part of their plan.&nbsp; That's been the focus of their corporate stores for a while.&nbsp; Unfortunately, getting new players these days has been a steeper hill to climb.It's also no secret that GW has had a rocky road with those independent stores that carry their product.&nbsp; They had very strict demands about what must be carried, how much of the store it occupies and how it is displayed.&nbsp; They had such a strong, fanatical player base that they could say &quot;our way or the highway.&quot;&nbsp; In the worst case situations their strict demands forced a retailer to invest significant amounts in a GW display, and then GW opened a store in the same town (in one case I heard it was almost across the street).It seems that strategy is backfiring in the current climate of the hobby industry.&nbsp; At least in the US, GW wants to start working with the independent retailers because they serve the existing player base.&nbsp; They consolidated their regional offices into one US office, implying that some of the rocky relationships were some of the regional offices not following the company's customer service mandate.I believe GW sees the market is dwindling and changing, and that they need to keep the old players because the supply of new gamers is harder to attract.BTW, <a href="http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/11212.html" target="_blank">here</a> is the link to the first part of the interview (which links to the rest).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Glyfair, post: 3811502, member: 53"] While I've never been a fan of GW, an interview with the head of the US operations on ICV2 was interesting. It's never been a secret that GW feels that getting new players introduced to the "GW Experience" has been the key part of their plan. That's been the focus of their corporate stores for a while. Unfortunately, getting new players these days has been a steeper hill to climb. It's also no secret that GW has had a rocky road with those independent stores that carry their product. They had very strict demands about what must be carried, how much of the store it occupies and how it is displayed. They had such a strong, fanatical player base that they could say "our way or the highway." In the worst case situations their strict demands forced a retailer to invest significant amounts in a GW display, and then GW opened a store in the same town (in one case I heard it was almost across the street). It seems that strategy is backfiring in the current climate of the hobby industry. At least in the US, GW wants to start working with the independent retailers because they serve the existing player base. They consolidated their regional offices into one US office, implying that some of the rocky relationships were some of the regional offices not following the company's customer service mandate. I believe GW sees the market is dwindling and changing, and that they need to keep the old players because the supply of new gamers is harder to attract. BTW, [url=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/11212.html]here[/url] is the link to the first part of the interview (which links to the rest). [/QUOTE]

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