fomo
Games Workshop have dug their feet in the ground and firmly planted themselves as the miniatures company known for creating FOMO. With their splash releases and purposely designed very limited editions, even some products that were supposed to be a main release become limited runs “looking at you Cursed City”.
- anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on social media.
Games Workshop has increased their use of FOMO over the last few years, this sales tactic forces its customer base to spend money there and then otherwise you wont be able to purchase them again, unless your willing to pay 3 times the RRP on eBay, which is where most of these splash releases end up.
FOMO is a great way for companies to get a cash injection quick but doesn’t help to build a stable fan base. FOMO is also a very quick way to kill off games. Cursed City is great example of FOMO killing a game. When Cursed City was first announced there was so much hype built up on social media, you couldn’t open YouTube or a news page without seeing Cursed City everywhere. With a promise of future support and an excellent miniatures range people were chomping at the bit to get their hands on the box.
Then out of the blue Games Workshop announced Cursed City was actually a splash release “the FOMO was strong with this one”. People began to panic and paid way over the top to get a copy off eBay. But now the dust has settled Cursed City is dead. No one is talking about it “other than in bad terms” because not enough people could get their hands on it.
Without the numbers to play it and talk about the fun of the game the excitement didn’t spread and the game just died. I know of copies that were opened and haven’t been touched since as all interest has gone.
Another example of how these splash releases can hurt the game and players is the new Beast Snaggas box set. The set was very limited and is currently the only way to get the new Ork codex. This has created a situation where 2 codexes exist at the same time as the new one hasn’t officially been released yet.
Events are banning the Beast Snaggas book as technically it isn’t official yet as it isn’t available to the wider public. So this could be very frustrating if you were one of the few that did manage to get the box.
Now, how could Games Workshop create a better system to stop FOMO from killing off or damaging games? Do print to order! Announce a product 3 months early and take paid orders informing the customer base that they will receive the product in 3 months. This allows the fan base to purchase what they want without being shaken down by scalpers.
If Cursed City was a made to order game, people would probably still be talking about it and playing it.
So come on Games Workshop! Sort it out and stop killing games and the fan base with these FOMO tactics.