"Games Workship & Covid-19?" Topic

How is the industry giant weathering the storm? I was surprised to see that the U.S. operations have stopped selling physical products for now.

Based on their website (at least here in Canada) they are selling out of products like crazy

My FLGS said GW had closed their warehouses the other week.

I think they marked all the online stuff Out of Stock".

From the way it's been selling at retailers online, it's going to take a good long while until merchandise has been restocked.

They're still churning out online content, though.

They had some supposedly big reveal again this week and the online show/reveal put me to sleep …

GW is closed worldwide. Still "releasing" things but no physical product available.

Yeah nothing on sale on the Uk either from GW or Forgeworld

The only stuff they seem to be selling is the digital stuff.

Strange that Battlefront can stay open, Warlord can stay open, but GW can't

Perhaps it made more economic sense for all the GW staff to go on furlough, it's free money after all. The UK government has insisted that non critical work in crowded workplaces must not go ahead.

Battlefront and Warlord Games are rather smaller than GW and orders could be fulfilled by a small staff, especially if they have stock to hand. Battlefront is also based in New Zealand which is much less badly affected.

link

(edit) turns out I was right about GW, that'll cheer up everyone on here.

On the other hand they'll be hoping their PTW digital licenses will be coining it during the lock down…

I'm guessing its their retail, production and warehousing operations – their 'knowledge workers' will no doubt have been sent home with laptops in hand – hence the online content.

Sooner or later I'd guess that the smaller companies who subcontract their figure casting may run out of stock if their subcontractor is shut.

I wish them luck. I started a long term Thousand Sons project right before the shutdown.

Stuff is pretty hard to find online, from FW at least. You can still get all but the newest 40k on Amazon.

I'm sure the Pirate companies in Russia and Singapore are seeing an uptick in business.

I was browsing 40K bits on ebay – just because they're useful and thought 40K auctions in general were looking more buoyant than usual – I'm guessing there're quite a few people out there with the time to finish projects and are trying to get what they need…?

Rou, so you're the guy that keeps out bidding me for bits!

Some possible good news for enthusiasts. Taken from GW:

"For all you Warhammer fans running low on plastic glue and Nuln Oil, that means there might soon be a Warhammer or Games Workshop store open near you. In line with local advice and government guidelines, some locations will reopen this week. The success of this pilot, and of course how the COVID-19 situation develops, will determine whether more open back up in the short term."

Not sure how that news would affect mail order items from FW/GW.

Where I live that will be on May 4. Stores have been selling via mail order and "curbside" throughout.

I'm just not sure when any new stock will be coming in, though.

I would expect retail stores to be the last things to reopen, as they are where you have the most "random"/"uncontrolled" contact.

It seems odd for the webstore and shipping to be shut down when those are the parts of so many other businesses that are open

Good news for GW fans:
youtu.be/OE35V7aJ00c

They're missing the opportunity to hold a Nurgle's Rot sale… ;-)

:-0

Bummer:

If you live in one of the listed territories, we'll be able to ship to you soon! We're updating this list every day, so be sure to check back often.

UK
Finland
Ireland
Netherlands
Norway
Denmark
France
Spain
Japan
Poland
Sweden
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Rest of World
Rest of Europe

We are not yet taking orders in the following territories:

Italy
Australia
New Zealand
USA
Canada

GW is now fully reopened. FW, however, is not.