Like many geeks, I do tabletop modeling. I play with “war dollies”. And if you are in England, the most common and biggest company for this hobby is Warhammer. 1 They produce quite frankly amazing models at a constant rate with lots of changes to rules to keep you engaged, and they make tons of money. 2
But at the ground root level, they are facing challenges, not so much in their product but in their stores. This has particularly shown up in London with the introduction of an Element Games store about an 8-minute walk away; this means that when you visit both, you realize why Warhammer, as a store, has stopped being a third place.
Let me explain, starting with one definition of a third place:
“Karen Christensen argues that third places are the answer to loneliness, political polarization, and climate resilience.”
For nerds, third places are very, very important because they tend not to be fantastically social, and they want to go somewhere where everyone knows their name, and they’re always glad they came, somewhere where there’s their own kind of people, and they can be social in a relaxed environment. However, if you go into a modern Warhammer store, it’s not that anymore. It’s an Apple store. It’s a showroom. It’s a gateway to get people to buy their first boxes. Their stock isn’t even as good as the third-party supplier because of the way they have to present things. Everything has to be facing forward, so it’s easy to see and easy to sell.
Whereas often, when a geek wants to go and buy something, they either know exactly what they’re going for, or they want to browse existing stuff like you browse a secondhand bookstore, and that third place experience, where you go in and chatter to people and lounge around and rummage through new stuff, is what geek stores need to be if you want to obtain that third space feeling.
If that’s not what Warhammer wants. That’s fine. They’re making billions, and they will continue to make billions as long as they make good models and good games. But you can’t have everything. Go into a Warhammer store and look at it. Where could I sit down? Could I see myself chatting for an hour in here? No, I could not. It’s somewhere where I could ask a question, where someone knowledgeable will give me a quick answer and point me gently towards the till.
This is in complete contrast to the big “Warhammer World” headquarters in Nottingham, and this is often where I wonder whether the Games Workshop big wigs get it wrong. They will look around their huge area and say, “Well, this is a perfect safe space for geeks; we know how to order a store.” Yes, because you’ve managed to retain a whole separate area that is a third place where people can eat, drink, chat, and play. You have removed that third place from your retail shops, turning them into a polished money machine, and the third-party suppliers have stepped in.
So. At the moment, Warhammer is a corporate supplier who have showrooms, and as long as they miss the third space need, then the third-party shops will outsell them.