http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2012/03/29/network-news-the-tournament-circuit-and-support-dies/

After October this year, Throne of Skulls will be discontinued and GW will no longer be providing any prize support or other support to independent tournaments and events. (such as Adepticon).

The only possible reason I could see for doing a move like this is that they want to have everything run through their stores and they don't want to be supporting events that possibly have competitors products at the event.

This is a very tenuous reason at best because the independent tournament scene has been doing quite a bit at building communities and providing a lot of business for GW. Who do you think buys the latest codexes and armies, therefore giving the most business?

I think GW is either trying to keep their players ignorant that other game systems even exist (in which case they'll essentially have to build their own game community within their stores that has no ties to the outside gaming community) or they're pulling support because they REALLY need the money and can't handle losing a box of marines every once in a while.

With the way GW has been expanding in the area, not to mention all the renovations at the bunker and what not, I get the feeling that they're overstretching their budget. I can get to 4 different GW stores in under a half hour from here, but they're so understaffed that I never bother because there's a 17% chance they won't even be open that day.

Not surprised.

Their support for our local annual game convention for GW related tournaments have always been extremely minimal (almost negligible)

The only thing I know about Throne of Skulls was that Jervis was one of the main guys running it and for all intents it was an experiment to ascertain the tournament nature of tournaments using their systems.

Bear in mind that GW has never been big on tournaments... they have (and always perhaps will) see their product as a lifestyle / waste time / hobby rather than something that can evolve into a sport, hence their lackluster motivation to improve their products.

From my observation, I also think that GW is going through a phase of reinvention so the full effects of their restructure might only be felt in a year or two from now.