Launch initiatives – Boiler Room Push “Skaventide”; WotC’s Love Your LGS promotion

Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and a marketing instructor at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne delves into the “boiler room” behind Warhammer: Age of Sigmar – Skaventide and Wizard of the Coast’s Love Your Local Game Store promotion.

From what I’ve heard, Games Workshop sales reps are under a lot of pressure to increase pre-orders of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Skaventide this week (see “Rolling for Initiative”). Our store has not received any calls, but I have read numerous reports of stores being called by GW reps, some of them their regular reps and others they have never dealt with dealt with before, working the phones to get stores to increase their product orders. the whole thing, almost like a boiler room operation. Some retailers even reported hearing cheers and applause in the background of their call when a representative apparently asked a store to increase its numbers.

Most stores reminded sales representatives Domination debacle, when there was a similar campaign to sell an expensive box set that left many stores still in stock years later; “But this box set is different,” say the representatives. Maybe, but I’m still looking at the initial orders of Domination sitting on shelves about three years after release, a pretty strong incentive to exercise caution with another big Age of Sigmar GW’s pressure to increase pre-orders Skaventide makes me think one of two things is happening:

1. They truly believe the game was under-ordered and are desperately trying to help retailers get enough on hand to meet the resulting demand.
2. Orders are significantly lower than GW’s projections and the company needs to get as much product out as possible by the pre-release date, as sales will drop significantly after that date.

Since most retailers place orders well below Games Workshop’s recommended quantities per store, I’m leaning heavily toward #2. Just like with comics, most sales of a new release occur at launch and drop considerably shortly after. Since (from what GW reps told me) Games Workshop begins production of new book releases approximately two years before the release date, Skaventide represents a fairly significant investment on the part of Games Workshop. Seeing such low initial sales for the release must be quite worrying for the company. They did, however, send the stores a nice promotional traveler.

Moving on to Wizards of the Coast, the company announced another Love Your Local Game Store promotion last week (and everyone should love, or at least love, their local game store) (see ” Wizards of the Coast Announces Love Your LGS promotion. From July 5, 2024 and while stocks last, customers can stop by their LGS and either purchase three packs of Modern Horizons 3 Play Boosters or play in a Modern Horizons 3 Booster Draft. For their participation, they will receive a fully illustrated Sakura Tribe Elder card without text, limited, while supplies last, to one card per customer per day. This is a great promotion from WotC, especially since in-store collection is mandatory (customers can buy the packs online but must collect them in store).

However, as the company announced on fairly short notice, I believe most stores already have events planned for July. Unless they already did it Modern Horizon 3 projects are planned, I think most stores will use the card to generate additional sales of Modern Horizon 3 packages.

(Disclosure: I own shares in Hasbro and Games Workshop.)

Comments? Has your store been inundated with calls from Games Workshop? How to have Modern Horizon 3 Did the sales take place? Send an email to [email protected].

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ICv2.com editorial team.