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 Enigwolf wrote:
Let's be honest. If GW opened up a Facebook page (which, didn't they a few years back?) or any form of social media, the FIRST thing that's going to happen is that every GW hater that exists online (and we've seen how many of them there are on DakkaDakka already) will either criticize, bash, or otherwise troll their existence. Any tangible, useful feedback they can get from the community would be drowned out in a sea of negativity.

The only way I can see this working out is if they publicly make a statement saying "Hey, look, we know we've been pretty gak communicating with you guys, and we want to make our business better, let's start with a clean slate and see if we can make this relationship work?" This is a double-edged sword, because on one hand it could work - on the other hand others (particularly investors) may see this as an admission by GW that they're suffering financially, and that this is a last-ditch attempt to save the company. The latter risks a self-fulfilling prophecy as hobbyists stop buying models for fear of the game dying, and investors dump stock early hoping to cash out before a bankruptcy announcement.

The fact you characterise people who criticise the way GW goes about its business as haters explains why you think there's a risk in your suggestions.

Few people hate GW, the vast majority of ill feeling is born from people getting frustrated that a thing they love and are heavily invested in is mismanaged, or that they feel they've been marginalised for some reason (such as price) or, personally, because they'd already done the hard part, they were utterly dominant and positioned at the top of the market, and through little else than their own incompetence have begun to let that position slide. Let's face it, the likes of Warmachine would never have got the traction it has if everyone was happy with 40K.

If GW opened up and tried to build a relationship with their customers again, sure, there'd be backlash initially, but I sincerely believe if they stayed the course it would be fantastic for the long term health of the company.

@Az - There are people who dislike GW (and may or may not vocalize it), and then there are "GW Haters". The latter are no different than "Windows Haters" or "iPhone Haters" or "Samsung Haters". They are highly vocal, and run around online making a lot of noise. It doesn't really matter what GW (or Apple, or Google, or Microsoft) does; these people will never be appeased. You also have the people who just plain don't like large, successful corporations (and prefer smaller enterprises that are almost universally friendlier). Just to be clear, I'm not calling anyone out as one! Just making the distinction.

I don't think Enigwolf is calling EVERYONE who doesn't love GW a "GW Hater"; just that they exist. Though I shouldn't speak for him Just my reading of it.

I kind of disagree with what you say about Warmachines, though, by the way. I think they would have done fine even if GW was well-loved by all. Their aesthetic is significantly different (much more steampunk), plus it's a different game. I don't think there's anything at all wrong with a low model count skirmisher, and I think there's a market for it. Plus, it's a fine game on its own merits (even if it's not my favorite), and people can play more than one game or collect more than one line of miniatures.

What GW should do is have a 30% off sale on space marines for a weekend. Ikea put a 30% off sale on their most popular bookcases, and you'd think they were giving them away for free. There's a bazillion people here with cartloads of bookcases. I thought the world was going all digital or something. The irony is that I'm lined up in this infernal mess and what I'm mostly buying is their display cases, which aren't on sale, LOL. Gawd, I can be stupid.

 Talys wrote:
@Az - There are people who dislike GW (and may or may not vocalize it), and then there are "GW Haters". The latter are no different than "Windows Haters" or "iPhone Haters" or "Samsung Haters". They are highly vocal, and run around online making a lot of noise. It doesn't really matter what GW (or Apple, or Google, or Microsoft) does; these people will never be appeased. You also have the people who just plain don't like large, successful corporations (and prefer smaller enterprises that are almost universally friendlier). Just to be clear, I'm not calling anyone out as one! Just making the distinction.

I don't think Enigwolf is calling EVERYONE who doesn't love GW a "GW Hater"; just that they exist. Though I shouldn't speak for him Just my reading of it.

Explained it spot-on. I do realize that there are plenty of people with valid criticisms of GW's business operations (heck, I have enough of them myself), but I was not lumping them together in the "GW hater" group that I mentioned in my post. But after seeing the last time GW had a facebook page, the "OMG I HATE GW" noise far outweighed the valid feedback GW got.

P.S. I would also appreciate it if you stopped trying to antagonize me in every post you have to quote me on.

Regardless of the intent, the use of the term "hater" is much the same as "white knight" on this board, it's shorthand for "person who holds a differing opinion to mine."

By using such a loaded phrase, intentionally or no, it slanted the tone of your whole post.

And it's irrelevant. EVERY company has "haters," as you mean the term. So do the Kardasians and, you know, everybody else with any amount of fame or notoriety. GW, however, are amongst the few who think that avoiding your "haters" is so desperately important that they will also gladly shut themselves off from the people who adore them.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 NoPoet wrote:


And yet I'm willing to bet many of these same people forgive Apple for selling way overpriced products which, relatively speaking, take yesteryear's ideas or very niche ideas and present them as today's advancement that everyone must have

Yeah, repackaging other people's ideas and recycling your old product with a few, incremental, changes and a fat price rise really sucks.

Yeah, that would suck.

I actually wonder if anyone in my Kings of War group is going to buy that set, to add to their Basilean army.... (Not a complaint, exactly - a sale is a sale, even if the minis are used in someone else's game.)

Hell, a great many of my RPG minis are GW.... and over a decade old, at this point.

The Auld Grump

Keep in mind the context of what Enigwolf said, though, which I think is true.

 Enigwolf wrote:
If GW opened up a Facebook page (which, didn't they a few years back?) or any form of social media, the FIRST thing that's going to happen is that every GW hater that exists online (and we've seen how many of them there are on DakkaDakka already) will either criticize, bash, or otherwise troll their existence. Any tangible, useful feedback they can get from the community would be drowned out in a sea of negativity.

That doesn't imply that everyone who doesn't like GW is a "hater", just that the most zealous of the people who don't like GW would hop onto an official forum or Facebook page to pile on about how GW sucks, is mismanaged, is going to die a horrible death, and can't produce anything original anymore.

I mean, that's not really rocket science. The question is, does the company want to hire 3+ community managers to monitor it 24/7 (like Blizzard does), or do they just say "whatever, not worth the trouble"?

While I agree that many successful companies have vocal haters, not all do. For example, I've never heard of any WD-40 or Ikea or Milwaukee (power tools) haters. Can you tell I'm doing home stuff today? Cutting into my painting time! Grrr By the way, Kardasians are a terrible example because they're so sensational. They rank up their with Donald Trump in divisiveness of "Love/Hate". Take Glen Campbell (Rhinestone Cowboy). No Glen Campbell haters!

That they'd have a huge backlog of vitriol to deal with is nobody's fault but GW's.

Doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, and, you know what? Well managed, the vitriol would drop to manageable levels and the valuable stuff come more to the fore within a month or two.

@The Auld Grump - I've heard that sentiment passed around, actually (Basileans for KoW).

I see the resemblance in the paint job (with Cyngar, too). But the models... really?

 Talys wrote:

While I agree that many successful companies have vocal haters, not all do. For example, I've never heard of any WD-40 or Ikea or Milwaukee (power tools) haters. Can you tell I'm doing home stuff today? Cutting into my painting time! Grrr

I always think of home stuff as practice for Titan-building. So that when I finally get one, I don't gak it up.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That they'd have a huge backlog of vitriol to deal with is nobody's fault but GW's.

Doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, and, you know what? Well managed, the vitriol would drop to manageable levels and the valuable stuff come more to the fore within a month or two.

It's an opinion worthy of debate. I'm sure they've had the same debate over at GW.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That they'd have a huge backlog of vitriol to deal with is nobody's fault but GW's.

Doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, and, you know what? Well managed, the vitriol would drop to manageable levels and the valuable stuff come more to the fore within a month or two.

I see that you're based in the UK. Why not shoot GW an email and offer to be the community manager for a Facebook page for them and see what they say?

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Talys wrote:

While I agree that many successful companies have vocal haters, not all do. For example, I've never heard of any WD-40 or Ikea or Milwaukee (power tools) haters. Can you tell I'm doing home stuff today? Cutting into my painting time! Grrr

I always think of home stuff as practice for Titan-building. So that when I finally get one, I don't gak it up.

LOL. Did you see you can order the Warlord now?

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/06/mars-pattern-warlord-titan-pre-orders.html



Unfortunately, I'd have to get rid of like... a lazy boy to fit it hahahaha. And it would take a year to paint.

I wonder if you can cannonball imperial guard out of the weapons...

 Talys wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Talys wrote:

While I agree that many successful companies have vocal haters, not all do. For example, I've never heard of any WD-40 or Ikea or Milwaukee (power tools) haters. Can you tell I'm doing home stuff today? Cutting into my painting time! Grrr

I always think of home stuff as practice for Titan-building. So that when I finally get one, I don't gak it up.

LOL. Did you see you can order the Warlord now?

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/06/mars-pattern-warlord-titan-pre-orders.html
...

Unfortunately, I'd have to get rid of like... a lazy boy to fit it hahahaha. And it would take a year to paint.

I wonder if you can cannonball imperial guard out of the weapons...

Yes I did I mentioned this over in the FW News & Rumors thread, but since you can buy the head alone, I'm gonna stick speakers and LEDs in it/a plinth to mount it on with an embedded Arduino microcontroller, and have a button that causes the head to emit the Mass Effect Reaper buzzing or War of the Worlds war horns sounds. And I'll name him Bob.

LOL. I want to see pictures when it's done

They won't take up an online presence within social media again, not because they are worried about haters, as Azreal has rightly said that could be easily managed and derogatory posts deleted. Each store has a fb page, but it won't go further. I do think that they should have a public voice outside of wd, however, I think a little pr would go a long way, and stop speculation from becoming 'fact' through repetition without rebuttal.

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
That they'd have a huge backlog of vitriol to deal with is nobody's fault but GW's.

Doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, and, you know what? Well managed, the vitriol would drop to manageable levels and the valuable stuff come more to the fore within a month or two.

I see that you're based in the UK. Why not shoot GW an email and offer to be the community manager for a Facebook page for them and see what they say?

I'm sorry, while I probably have the skills, I don't think I could fake the attitude.

 JamesY wrote:
They won't take up an online presence within social media again, not because they are worried about haters, as Azreal has rightly said that could be easily managed and derogatory posts deleted. Each store has a fb page, but it won't go further. I do think that they should have a public voice outside of wd, however, I think a little pr would go a long way, and stop speculation from becoming 'fact' through repetition without rebuttal.

They did.

Then "Spots the Space Marine" happened...

 Grimtuff wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
They won't take up an online presence within social media again, not because they are worried about haters, as Azreal has rightly said that could be easily managed and derogatory posts deleted. Each store has a fb page, but it won't go further. I do think that they should have a public voice outside of wd, however, I think a little pr would go a long way, and stop speculation from becoming 'fact' through repetition without rebuttal.

They did.

Then "Spots the Space Marine" happened...

Yeah...

Ain't no defending that...

Stop spouting rubbish, in the days before you lumped as all together as haterz we used to have a lot of contact with GW staff online and it didn't immediately devolve into hate posts, in fact it rarely did.
If GW actually gave a gak about their public image it wouldn't be hard to turn things around.

WTF is that Age of Sigmar thing?! I want Fantasy to be Fantasy, not medieval 40k. I mean I think from the screencap the models look technically good, but... ugh. Just no.

As a player of fantasy games I'm not really looking for 40k in medieval times. So... not buying that. I'm pretty sure a lot of Fantasy players will be passing on that one too.

They should really do market research.

 heartserenade wrote:
WTF is that Age of Sigmar thing?! I want Fantasy to be Fantasy, not medieval 40k. I mean I think from the screencap the models look technically good, but... ugh. Just no.

As a player of fantasy games I'm not really looking for 40k in medieval times. So... not buying that. I'm pretty sure a lot of Fantasy players will be passing on that one too.

They should really do market research.

Keep in mind that 40k was just Fantasy in space... And space marines are just medieval knights with guns. Well, except the ones with swords, maces, axes, hammers, shields and staves I mean, they all have heraldry, 40,000 years in the future

Stopped by my store today, and the vibe for Sigmar seems pretty good. Which is to say, people who had no interest in WHFB are actually considering spending money on Fantasy.

I think Forgeworld is a great example of what GW *could* be doing to build goodwill. They show off teasers of their upcoming projects, talk about plans they have for one project or another, actually adjust pricing down if things don't sell right (Tech Thralls went from 5 to 10 models and stayed the same price!!). They had their own Facebook page, but I believe GW mandated they remove it (along with Black Library's page).

Lo and behold, FW doesn't have this reputation as a repugnant company. Expensive yes, but there isn't this perception that they're trying to extract money from you. GW does nothing to fight that-typically they just make it worse. Take the new Mechanicus codex: previously, codexes were raised from $35 to $50 to accommodate for hardback or some-such, although that didn't slow their releases/re-release down. Then the Mechanicus comes out, and GW effectively makes the codex for that army $70. In this case, the books are not only expensive, but they have a distinct feeling of being a rip-off, because why couldn't they have just been put together as one army in a $50 book?

In my opinion, GW is closed off because management doesn't care what customer's opinions of the company are. They think people will buy their "miniatures of jewel-like wonder" (trademark Mark Wells) no matter what. The plastic crack rules all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
WTF is that Age of Sigmar thing?! I want Fantasy to be Fantasy, not medieval 40k. I mean I think from the screencap the models look technically good, but... ugh. Just no.

As a player of fantasy games I'm not really looking for 40k in medieval times. So... not buying that. I'm pretty sure a lot of Fantasy players will be passing on that one too.

They should really do market research.

Keep in mind that 40k was just Fantasy in space... And space marines are just medieval knights with guns. Well, except the ones with swords, maces, axes, hammers, shields and staves I mean, they all have heraldry, 40,000 years in the future

Stopped by my store today, and the vibe for Sigmar seems pretty good. Which is to say, people who had no interest in WHFB are actually considering spending money on Fantasy.

Well, and I realize this is a bit off-topic, how many people were interested in playing Fantasy because they would get into the armies that exist in WHFB now, as opposed to everyone who just wants to play Fantasy's equivalent demi-god paladin guys? I mean, they have a freaking Chaplain in the picture- it's just an opportunity to play the exact same army in another game. \

I'm kind of groaning at the thought of what WH-AOS games are going to look like- half to 3/4th's of all games having one side being these Sigmarites, and the other being Chaos or someone's old WHFB army converted over. I already *hated* that about 40k, so I'm definitely not looking forward to it with Fantasy.

 Talys wrote:
@The Auld Grump - I've heard that sentiment passed around, actually (Basileans for KoW).

I see the resemblance in the paint job (with Cyngar, too). But the models... really?

Really.

Yes, the GW sculpts are not the same, but there are enough similarities to fit into a Basilean army.

The Angels, in particular.

Remember - Mantic allows folks to use non-Mantic miniatures in their games, even at tournaments. So people that play Kings of War are a lot more likely to use miniatures that they like, rather than ones that they are required to use.

I do not think that I have ever met a Kings of War player that complained because the army they were facing on the table was comprised of repurposed GW miniatures. Or Reaper miniatures. Or Heresy. Heck, Mantic has bundled Avatar of War miniatures in some of the armies that they sold on their website.

Plus, the irony that GW is now borrowing ideas from Mantic.... And, yes, I do believe that GW is knowingly borrowing, and is not as unaware of their competition as they might claim. (Just as they were well aware of the similarities between the British Mk I Tank and the Landraider - despite what they claimed at the trial.)

Hell, I suspect some of their game designers may actually play Kings of War.... (Not a complaint - I know for a fact that game designers at Paizo play other companies' games. (As does their CEO.))

I think that it would do a good deal to help GW if their upper management actually started participating in the hobby.

The Auld Grump


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Accolade wrote:
I think Forgeworld is a great example of what GW *could* be doing to build goodwill. They show off teasers of their upcoming projects, talk about plans they have for one project or another, actually adjust pricing down if things don't sell right (Tech Thralls went from 5 to 10 models and stayed the same price!!). They had their own Facebook page, but I believe GW mandated they remove it (along with Black Library's page).

Lo and behold, FW doesn't have this reputation as a repugnant company. Expensive yes, but there isn't this perception that they're trying to extract money from you. GW does nothing to fight that-typically they just make it worse. Take the new Mechanicus codex: previously, codexes were raised from $35 to $50 to accommodate for hardback or some-such, although that didn't slow their releases/re-release down. Then the Mechanicus comes out, and GW effectively makes the codex for that army $70. In this case, the books are not only expensive, but they have a distinct feeling of being a rip-off, because why couldn't they have just been put together as one army in a $50 book?

In my opinion, GW is closed off because management doesn't care what customer's opinions of the company are. They think people will buy their "miniatures of jewel-like wonder" (trademark Mark Wells) no matter what. The plastic crack rules all.

More, that the management does not like being told that they are wrong - especially when the evidence is piling up that they are wrong.

They are becoming defensive, to the point of paranoia.

They believed that their IP would be their moat and castle, only to discover that their moat and castle are made of sand. (The Chapterhouse case could, and should, have gone a great deal worse for GW.)

They have an overweening belief in their own position, and do not like that the position is now being challenged.

On the plus side, future financial reports will not need to brush a million or so pounds spent on legal actions under a rug.

That lesson, I believe, they have finally learned.

But I see few signs that they have learned anything else. Hubris, pure and simple, is their greatest failure. And until Kirby and the Kronies are given the boot... I do not see the company recovering.

Attempting a rapprochement after getting rid of them would be much more likely to succeed.

The Auld Grump

 NoPoet wrote:
I'll be honest, I don't blame the GW for closing off. All they get is constant, vague comments about them "not caring" about their customers or their products.

Everything they release is criticised; people are demanding apologies from the GW for Finecast among other things.

And yet I'm willing to bet many of these same people forgive Apple for selling way overpriced products which, relatively speaking, take yesteryear's ideas or very niche ideas and present them as today's advancement that everyone must have.

People constantly amaze me.

I think the difference between apple and GW is that you don't assemble and paint you iPhones/iPads, I think if you think about how many hours people spend painting models, many have probably devoted years to just that. This will no doubt create some kind of emotional bond because it's something you have spent a lot of time on. I think the lack of quality control with the initial is to blame for the backlash, they must of had a lot of returned models for them to stop making models in finecast, the name of the product and the boasts the company made about how it was the best thing since sliced bread really didn't them any favors.

 Enigwolf wrote:
Let's be honest. If GW opened up a Facebook page (which, didn't they a few years back?) or any form of social media, the FIRST thing that's going to happen is that every GW hater that exists online (and we've seen how many of them there are on DakkaDakka already) will either criticize, bash, or otherwise troll their existence. Any tangible, useful feedback they can get from the community would be drowned out in a sea of negativity.

I think for someone to actually take the time to post negative posts about GW products indicates they are very passionate about them. I don't really like 40k, it's rare I even look at what's been produced for 40k, let alone comment on it because frankly, I don't care.

Don't forget the stormcast are a new faction, and are not the new look for empire. The chaos look the same as the current range, who knows what the men will look like when the new range comes out?

@itsonlyme - call me crazy, but I think there are people with more emotional bonds with their iPhones and iPads than I'll ever be with my miniatures (and spend more time with them).

For cripes sakes, in China, I've heard of multiple people selling their own body parts (like a kidney) in exchange for an iPad. That is just insane!

On the other hand Apple has plenty of haters -- the super vocal ultra zealots that troll every news story or product release. I think iPhone/iPad and Xbox each have about 100 times more haters than GW has of people who know they even exist