Soul Doubt

In case up until this point in your day you hadn't seen enough pictures of Roger Daltrey in a tub of Heinz beans, you're welcome.

Moving right along, did you guys hear the news about WFB 8th edition selling out in the states?  Well, it looks like GW is temporarily running very short on supplies of the book as they underestimated the initial demand stateside.  According to this Warseer thread forwarded to me by my good friend Hoagy aka Memento Mori, aka Paul, aka "I'm just some limey," direct shipments from the mother ship to some smaller retailers may be delayed or cancelled or something.

'Oh ho ho' you may currently be thinking to yourself.  'This is where Dethtron is gonna really let GW have it for being incompetent and not allocating enough product to the US Market."  Well if you want to see a bunch of whiny bitches complaining about how GW put a bunch of sand in their vaginas, go click that warseer link.  You will see such classic lines such as some asshat saying:

"This is so typical. GW just can't seem to get anything right. It's that kind of stories that make me scratch my head. The way they like to run business at times seems amateurish at best. I expect more from a company of that caliber." 

You may marvel as some other retard cries:

"GW really need to employ someone with marketing sense, to overwatch the entire operation and stop screw ups like this. Sorry for you mate."

Well all of that is horse shit.  Voss gets it pretty much right on when he says:

"Given the lack of fantasy players in a lot of the game stores I've been to in the last few years, I'm not surprised that GW underestimated the interest in fantasy in the US. Actually, I won't be surprised if GW estimated it correctly, and shop owners are overestimating the amount of rulebooks they'll sell. "

He also wins for having the best signature line ever- "Consider the possibility that the rumour mill, not GW, is jumping the shark."

Now, while I'm sure that mistakes were made and product allocations could have been handled more evenly, nothing changes the fact that running a business is very complicated and something like demand is actually pretty difficult to predict- especially when you're fundamentally changing an existing product. 

'Wait, so if Douchetron isn't going to complain about the nincompoops running GW, what is he going to unload on?" Well the answer is you, you whiny cunts.  I swear to unholy Krondor, if one more person bitches about how GW is shooting themselves in the foot for producing an expensive rule book I am going to go Full Metal Jacket on them*.  So in short:  Dear Internet, FUCK YOU!  Looks like you jerkoffs complaining about how expensive this book was going to be bought it after all.  Nice job, way to offer resistance to GW's "price rape."  If you** were really so upset about the price, why didn't you do something about it?  I mean something that would actually represent your dumbass opinion- don't buy the book, write GW, write your Congressman, hold a hunger strike, set yourself on fire at your local Battle Bunker, or whatever.  Bending over and buying a book that you feel is too expensive only shows that it must not have really been too expensive...or that you're fiscally irresponsible.

Basically, it looks like I was right about GW's pricing policy.  Companies producing luxury goods with limited or no competition can charge steep prices without suffering a significant loss of demand and revenues.  Also, the recession, which is over#, clearly hasn't impacted sales too much either, so stop using that as an excuse. 

'But GW is evil and shorted small businesses.' Well first, shut the fuck up.  Second, to test this theory I went to my local GW store in scenic Niles, Il to see how their stock levels were yesterday.  I bought the very last copy of the Battle Magic card set and they were down below 5 or 6 copies of the rules.  So it looks like even though they gave their own stores preferential treatment (gee imagine that), they cut it damn close with inventory everywhere so stick your locovore, xenophobic, anti-big business, GW is pulling a Wal-Mart and trying to crush small businesses, or whatever inane rhetoric you're spouting right up your ass.  GW isn't trying to show favor to any particular business partners.  It's in their interest to keep as many small game stores as possible (which are great at running themselves out of business) supplied and running to increase their overall market reach.  They just fucked up with a product launch.  They got a little conservative with their production at some point, with good reason, and wanted to make sure they didn't have a Crystal Pepsi/Coke II fiasco on their hands.  Get over it, it happens.

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*Which may or may not consist of me tearing their head off and shitting down their neck.

**If you did any of the ideas that I proposed after this point this post isn't direct at you.  You are either dead or fought for what you believe in.

# and before Sandwyrm jumps down my throat for saying that the recession is over- it is.  A recession is only the portion of time where GDP is falling.  Since the GDP is rising (whether this is artificially because of increased government spending or whatever other reasons may exist), the recession is over by definition.  If you don't believe me go to the Fred website and look up any nominal GDP graph they have.  This doesn't imply that the economy is in great shape or isn't headed for a double dip recession, but just that the recession stopped a short while ago.  If anybody is interested in knowing, some of the more optimistic estimates are predicting that 5% growth year over year for the next 5 years will get US productivity back in line with where it should be.  Some, however are predicting that 10 years may be more accurate, as we are thus far failing to meet the 5% growth rate.