WizKids New Star Wars License
- Thread starter Jack of Shadows
- Start date
Ranger REG
Explorer
Maybe they should just make minis for Classic BattleTech.Jack of Shadows said:
Glyfair
Explorer
D.Shaffer said:
Actually, WizKids has worked hard to keep in the hobby market in the loop. Recent promotions have been tied to people buying their products in brick & mortar stores. Even their most recent controversial change (only distributing to hobby stores through Alliance/Diamond) has been so they can control their market and keep the internet only stores from having the advantage. Stores that don't want to deal with Alliance (or can't) don't feel it's a good decision, but the intent was still there to help them.
Note that Ryan Dancey's predictions for WizKids this year were that they would try to "fight the good fight" and keep hobby stores as their primary focus, but by the end of the year have to go to the mass merchants. In his listing of their "flaws" he called them "true believers." He feels they believe they can be successful sticking to the hobby market, and feels this is a flaw.
While wizkids claims they're gonna keep supporting their existing brick & mortar stores, thats pretty much part of the lie and coverup they like to do now. The problem isn't them supporting stores as that stores have no interest anymore in supporting them. What store wants to keep ordering product lines that do not sell ?! My own venue where I play mechwarrior at still (though I don't run games anymore) has got large stocks of every expansion released between jan 2005 and now. And nobody's buying them anymore. Needless to say mageknight sales have also become non-existant for all the stores and are now stuck with product that's good only as paper weights and cat toys.
In terms of PLAYERS... this city has about a million total people living in and around it, and there's only 6 total players of mechwarrior who attend events at the two local venues still running games (and this is the area that produced the only double world champion for the game). I dunno, maybe they just wanna drop the line because an american has never won the world championships for it and its embarassing to keep losing to us canadians every year ?! Anyways, with Heroclix there's maybe a dozen players in town who come to events still.
As already covered, all the other lines they pushed out the past couple years have flopped, and meanwhile while they were pushing those lines, including horrorclix, it was at the cost of sucking budget funds away from the other remaining lines that the company was depending on to keep players interested.
Also let's not forget the Battlestar Galactica game they came out with, which hasn't done all that well for them either. There's ZERO events being played in all of canada for it, and only 133 total for all the venues in the USA running it for the next five or six weeks. And BG was their latest release before this new star wars game.
But yeah, Hasbro must have this wish to lose money or something to be jeopardizing one of their most important licenses by letting wizkids play with it.
In terms of PLAYERS... this city has about a million total people living in and around it, and there's only 6 total players of mechwarrior who attend events at the two local venues still running games (and this is the area that produced the only double world champion for the game). I dunno, maybe they just wanna drop the line because an american has never won the world championships for it and its embarassing to keep losing to us canadians every year ?! Anyways, with Heroclix there's maybe a dozen players in town who come to events still.
As already covered, all the other lines they pushed out the past couple years have flopped, and meanwhile while they were pushing those lines, including horrorclix, it was at the cost of sucking budget funds away from the other remaining lines that the company was depending on to keep players interested.
Also let's not forget the Battlestar Galactica game they came out with, which hasn't done all that well for them either. There's ZERO events being played in all of canada for it, and only 133 total for all the venues in the USA running it for the next five or six weeks. And BG was their latest release before this new star wars game.
But yeah, Hasbro must have this wish to lose money or something to be jeopardizing one of their most important licenses by letting wizkids play with it.
Last edited:
Ranger REG
Explorer
If you mean they should not limit their outlet to hobby stores (aka FLGS), then I agree. I just hope they don't abandon it, regardless of their personal opinion or experience with their neighborhood hobby stores.Glyfair said:
Dire Bare
Legend
DeeEight said:
Sorry, but your "analysis" doesn't fly with the recent industry news concerning WizKids. It's pretty clear that they do their best to support local brick & mortar stores and that this is a priority to them. Your two posts really just seem like anti-WizKids bashing with little evidence to back it up.
Now while it's clear they do care about their customers and the local stores, it can certainly be argued how successful they have been in running their various game lines. HorrorClix is too new to be deemed a failure just yet, although it sure doesn't seem to be a big seller in my area. HeroClix seems to be doing just fine in my area, but I'm personally frustrated that Marvel gets more love than DC (but that's just because I'm a DC guy). Most of WizKids remaining miniature lines do seem to be hovering between "okay" and "about to die", but that isn't "lying" to customers so much as games not managed well.
WizKids CSG's (Constructible Strategy Games) like Pirates and now this new Star Wars game seem to be doing very well. The Rocketman game didn't last (although it was hella cool IMHO), but Pirates sells extremely well in my area and most kids I know are fairly into it. I'm guessing the Star Wars version will be a great seller, but time will tell.
It certainly seems you've had some bad experiences with WizKids, DeeEight, but your posts are just way too negative and without real evidence to be fully believable.
You mean recent industry news like topps's own earning reports where wizkids is producing losses ? Or are you just going by whatever announcements wizkids themselves makes to claim how great the company is doing ? If you do mean their own announcements, perhaps you'll have noticed that over the last few years, they've stopped mentioning various product lines in the press releases... product lines which were among their most popular.
If you want further evidence, its all over the wizkids site and forums, there's lots and lots of disgruntled players and envoys are who tired of the same old excuses recycled over and over from wizkids staff. Its hard to be positive about a company whose staff have outright lied to you in the past.
If you're not going off something topps/wizkids has said themselves, which industry reports are you referring to then ?
If you want further evidence, its all over the wizkids site and forums, there's lots and lots of disgruntled players and envoys are who tired of the same old excuses recycled over and over from wizkids staff. Its hard to be positive about a company whose staff have outright lied to you in the past.
If you're not going off something topps/wizkids has said themselves, which industry reports are you referring to then ?
D.Shaffer said:And with this statement, I think we can toss any idea that he's being objective out the window.
Oh really? And switching distributor companies to one that isn't liked by most of the independant comic/gaming stores was done to improve their support of brick & mortar stores was it? The fact they announced it and immediately disabled access to their online forums for a week afterwards doesn't strike you as more than a coincidence ?
Or for that matter... you've primarily dealt directly with wizkids for the past two years (as I have) so you know firsthand what's "really" been going on right?
Maybe I should give a history lesson on how wizkids runs its game lines. Unlike other companies, wizkids recruits envoys for different venues/regions. Envoys are not paid but they are compensated with freebie gaming product for the lines they represent. They're supposed to run games at stores and at conventions, act as the GM for whatever line they represent, and generally promote the game to bring new players (cough customers with money cough) into the company's fold. They're also however supposed to be kept up to date with changes/developments for their lines, and upcoming releases. More up to date than regular players that is. They get access to special envoy-only forums as one part of how they're supposed to be kept in the loop. But for the past two years, for the mechwarrior divsion anyways, the brand managers (who are actual paid wizkids staff) for other lines, and for that matter other gaming industry reps have been a better source of accurate intel as to what's happening within the company and with the game line. When players come to us with questions on when the new expansion is coming out, or what's gonna be in it, or why are all the figures in this release coming out of the boxes broken and missing pieces (Annihilation last year, the failure/defect rate was mindboggling) we're supposed to have better answers for them than "I don't know".
Wizkids operates on a four month cycle for game expansion releases within the mechwarrior line (jan, may, sept) and before each release they were giving sneak previews on the general forums/websites and making announcements for special exclusive offers (in books, magazines, and so forth) which would not be available at stores. Yet ever since the "coup" last summer when jordan got forced out, and many of the original staff still with the company got fired also, things have been rather different. For the wolf strike release, there was a novel tie-in which they'd for months, in fact right up until a few days of the expansion release been promoting as having an exclusive mech offer coupon inside the book available when you pre-ordered the book. There was also a House Davion battleforce pack offer that was announced for the expansion and coupons for that were supposed to be in the bricks of boosters (they changed their sorting/packaging of boosters for the wolf hunters release). Wolf strike releases... the novel "wolf hunters" releases. No coupons. Thousands of questions though from people who bought the novels and the bricks. Players at venues asking their battlemasters. Store managers asking the battlemasters why they've got unhappy customers. Battlemasters asking wizkids what happened to the coupons and special offers. It was over a month after wolf strike released that a wizkids employee named Jonas Saunders dropped a simple one sentence reply of "there is no book offer" in one of the online forum threads. That was it. They promised something, advertised it, then changed their minds and cancelled it, but didn't tell anyone until a month after the book was on the market. So for the collectors who were only after the book (which was full of spelling and grammar errors btw) to get the exclusive pre-order offer, you can imagine that they felt robbed of their money and trust. And the davion battleforce kit which was the sole insentive for many players to join the wolf strike officer's club, because being a club member gives you a discount on the kit and first dibs on it... also cancelled, but nobody is told this until after thousands of people have spent the hundred dollars or so on wolf strike boosters needed to qualify to join the club (and they know this from watching the club applications arrive in the mail).
And this is behaviour would continue on the part of wizkids. The next release which they announced would be out for january 2007 (which was announced in the summer at gencon) and called outlaws hadn't had any sneak previews or anything yet. In fact anytime anyone (store, envoy, player, whatever) asked specific questions about if outlaws would release on time or what was gonna be in it.... nada...silence....avoid the questions behaviour. Finally they announce that the expansion is cancelled and that yet again they're changing the business model for the game and no longer will there be random booster contents but now the figures are gonna be sold in clear plastic cover boxes like warhammer figures are, and hotwheels toys and stuff. And previously "exclusive" offers than only people who joined their "officers clubs" and attended the conventions had access to are now gonna be sold in the retail stores.
Also last week, Jonas promised there'd be an announcement for the Davion Battleforce kit which is now gonna be sold retail as a "action pack" instead by MONDAY. Well last night the envoys were all busy in the battlemaster forum tearing into wizkids because it was thursday and EVERY other wizkids line that was still not "officially cancelled" had had major announcements except mechwarrior. This leads those of us buying/playing the game still to believe that the line is due to be cancelled, and that they're only delaying the announcement as much as possible to keep people buying product as long as possible. Actually that reminds me, during the last online chat session back in october, the wizkids staff basically came out and said that either players continue to buy the product in 2007 or the line would be cancelled. Essentially they tried to blackmail people into supporting the game which wizkids hasn't cared to support themselves very well.
So... how objective do you think players should be with anything wizkids announces ?
Wizkids operates on a four month cycle for game expansion releases within the mechwarrior line (jan, may, sept) and before each release they were giving sneak previews on the general forums/websites and making announcements for special exclusive offers (in books, magazines, and so forth) which would not be available at stores. Yet ever since the "coup" last summer when jordan got forced out, and many of the original staff still with the company got fired also, things have been rather different. For the wolf strike release, there was a novel tie-in which they'd for months, in fact right up until a few days of the expansion release been promoting as having an exclusive mech offer coupon inside the book available when you pre-ordered the book. There was also a House Davion battleforce pack offer that was announced for the expansion and coupons for that were supposed to be in the bricks of boosters (they changed their sorting/packaging of boosters for the wolf hunters release). Wolf strike releases... the novel "wolf hunters" releases. No coupons. Thousands of questions though from people who bought the novels and the bricks. Players at venues asking their battlemasters. Store managers asking the battlemasters why they've got unhappy customers. Battlemasters asking wizkids what happened to the coupons and special offers. It was over a month after wolf strike released that a wizkids employee named Jonas Saunders dropped a simple one sentence reply of "there is no book offer" in one of the online forum threads. That was it. They promised something, advertised it, then changed their minds and cancelled it, but didn't tell anyone until a month after the book was on the market. So for the collectors who were only after the book (which was full of spelling and grammar errors btw) to get the exclusive pre-order offer, you can imagine that they felt robbed of their money and trust. And the davion battleforce kit which was the sole insentive for many players to join the wolf strike officer's club, because being a club member gives you a discount on the kit and first dibs on it... also cancelled, but nobody is told this until after thousands of people have spent the hundred dollars or so on wolf strike boosters needed to qualify to join the club (and they know this from watching the club applications arrive in the mail).
And this is behaviour would continue on the part of wizkids. The next release which they announced would be out for january 2007 (which was announced in the summer at gencon) and called outlaws hadn't had any sneak previews or anything yet. In fact anytime anyone (store, envoy, player, whatever) asked specific questions about if outlaws would release on time or what was gonna be in it.... nada...silence....avoid the questions behaviour. Finally they announce that the expansion is cancelled and that yet again they're changing the business model for the game and no longer will there be random booster contents but now the figures are gonna be sold in clear plastic cover boxes like warhammer figures are, and hotwheels toys and stuff. And previously "exclusive" offers than only people who joined their "officers clubs" and attended the conventions had access to are now gonna be sold in the retail stores.
Also last week, Jonas promised there'd be an announcement for the Davion Battleforce kit which is now gonna be sold retail as a "action pack" instead by MONDAY. Well last night the envoys were all busy in the battlemaster forum tearing into wizkids because it was thursday and EVERY other wizkids line that was still not "officially cancelled" had had major announcements except mechwarrior. This leads those of us buying/playing the game still to believe that the line is due to be cancelled, and that they're only delaying the announcement as much as possible to keep people buying product as long as possible. Actually that reminds me, during the last online chat session back in october, the wizkids staff basically came out and said that either players continue to buy the product in 2007 or the line would be cancelled. Essentially they tried to blackmail people into supporting the game which wizkids hasn't cared to support themselves very well.
So... how objective do you think players should be with anything wizkids announces ?
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