Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne dives into the wording on a Spectacular Spider Man #1 promotion as well as the lack of information released about Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon.
Although we do sell them, normally comics are not my bailiwick. However, Marvel Comics announced a promotion this week for the first issue of Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day showing why proofreading offers is important; especially if a company makes a promotional offer, it needs to make the terms of that offer as clear as possible.
The promotion offers stores an extra 10% off on the first issue of Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The problem comes with the wording of the details on how to earn that extra 10%: FOC orders for all covers “must match or exceed your total FOC orders of Amazing Spider-Man #25 (all covers) by 100%.” Does a store have to match its FOC orders of Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day to Amazing Spider-Man #25 by 100% or exceed them by 100%? Probably match to total orders of ASM #25, but adding that extra and unnecessary “by 100%” muddies the waters as it is possible to read the copy as requiring double the order of ASM #25 in order to qualify for the extra 10%. If Marvel had just written “must match or exceed your total FOC orders of Amazing Spider-Man #25 (all covers),” the offer would have been clear.
Speaking of words, we have heard very few words from Games Workshop regarding the new Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon edition (see “Straining Budgets“). Asking our store’s GW sales representative for some information regarding the release brought little to no information. This does not help when budgeting for one of the biggest miniature releases of the year with some stores in larger metro areas planning on orders of over 100 copies. GW has not released any official information regarding pricing or contents of the set and the closest stores have been able to get to a release date is June 2026.
Based on past experience, GW will solicit orders for the set on a Saturday or Sunday evening, with orders due by 5:30 p.m. the following Tuesday. That solicitation, unless GW deviates from its standard practices, is also the first time stores will officially learn what is in the box. Every other publisher and manufacturer in the industry gives stores and customers weeks, nay months to solicit pre-orders and budget funds for the order.
In addition, although GW announced at AdeptiCon that current Warhammer 40,000 Codexes will remain compatible with Armageddon, players are not so sure about that with a number of our locals saying they believe GW will stop publishing Codexes entirely, moving to an app-based format for them. While this would allow Codex updates to get posted more quickly, reading them on a smartphone screen will prove more difficult due to the size of the screen. Additionally, our local players generally prefer rulebooks to apps as they usually find it easier to look up rules about which they have questions in a book rather than on a screen.
Comments? Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Source: ICv2
