OBT Forum

Table top's major investment is figurine(s). The old truth is that you can always rewrite rules as long as figurine scale remains same and previously bought figurines remain supported by new rules.

This is only true if the revenue generating component of the company's game line is in mini and mini-related sales. This does not apply to companies not based on this model.

GW followed/follows this model pretty closely. The historic bulk of their revenue generation has been through the sales of Games Workshop miniatures and miniature-related products, like Citadel paints. Game supplements were historically light; Army books for the most part. Game supplements were designed to support a heavy emphasis on the artistic sides of the "hobby" (with hobby defined as the collection, painting, modeling, modification, and playing of GW miniatures).

In 2006-07, with the recession starting to creep GW began publishing additional game supplements to expand game mechanics and universe. The expected outcome was to strengthen the gaming community with play variety and nation-wide campaigns. While the supplements were a back drop to the continued rebranding of GW's miniature lines, they were never a focus.

This is extremely important.

From a sales perspective the supplements were never hot sellers – that wasn't the point. Instead, they provided the relatively static universe and game with new material – effectively a booster shot while the economy slowed down and the miniature rebrand continued.

One of the biggest coups for GW was the Armageddon Game Rules. This effectively codified serious Big Game play into something any GW player group (or retail store) could manage. Coupled with new models and tournament support, and there was a major upswing in bread and butter sales (i.e., miniatures and miniature-related product).

You wouldn't believe how many new and old players dished out cash for a Baneblade once those rules were published. It's one of the major reasons why GW converted the model over to plastic almost immediately – Accessibility was worth the capital outlay to meet the demand.

Again, in this example game supplements supported the major revenue generating products, with a focus on strengthening the long term investment of the customer.
 

     

likewise Catalyst contrary to popular belief is NOT a Miniatures based company.  Like Wizards of the Coast and Paizo they are book sellers who contract to a third party and give them (Iron Wind Metals in this case) permission to make money off the brand.  this gives Catalyst a competitive advantage because they have such massively low overhead in terms of only needing to rent out warehouse space.  It also means that they can have thier primary people in Washington, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon, and Texas and still be able to function.  CGL really is a case study in  the future "Virtual Office."

back to the fun stuff.

if the new box set is 100% new Miniatures then I hope they are well balanced and arrayed, something previous box set iterations were never good at.

I have my own list of 30 extant mechs that I think would be well served as box set stars

oh on that we can agree, I wish I could get my hands on a 3rd Generation construction rules set so I could pitch something to Herb.

I did look at employment in GW during the late 90s and one thing I got told before the interview was that GW quite literally wanted to be a household name. Say what you will, they thought big and it's paid off for them.

Yup. Doesn't hurt that they completely reworked their independent retailer business model. It's probably the single biggest contributor to the brand's continued prosperity IMO.