Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Kendo wrote:
So now entry into the game is a $120 box, a $30 ecodex, and a $500 iPad? I don't know why the average brick and mortar store would even bother with the game at that point.
I want to say "nay" but they have done worse stuff.

Yeah, let's just slip that in there, at some point in the past GW have done "something" worse than forcing players to either buy an "iPad" or stop playing. Care to say what that was? And just because I feel duty-bound to counter this misinformation when it surfaces, you do not need an iPad to read digital codexes, just the "enhanced edition" versions with image galleries etc. They also release them as ePubs and Mobis that you can read on your phone or computer, or print out.

@yakface

I don't buy it. Think of those pages and pages in tiny print of retailers in the US in white dwarf. I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to assume those stores average 2-3 of each codex on hand at any given time. Multiply that by the number of books and then the number of stores and then multiply by retail and you're looking at a ridiculous amount of money they'd be cutting off. And that doesn't touch on how any GW sells to other wholesellers who supply stores that aren't on GW's radar.

I just don't see it happening. But I could be wrong. I think rationally we're simply looking at a trend of quick and easy publications to drive additional sales and that model sales will still be primarily driven by new codexes/army books for the foreseeable future.

 filbert wrote:
I find it very hard to believe that even GW would countenance ditching printed material entirely.

Agreed. I'd be done with them. I want a physical book to hold and caress.

GW strategy has always been to be able to sell everything you need to play in store. With a premium.
Unless they start selling iPads with a SM on the back, I highly doubt this will become true.

 Darkmoonlight wrote:
seriosuly think about it (sorry if someone has said this already). GW would have to have major shares in apple or any other company that you can download the books on and correct me if I'm wrong but I dont think everyone who plays warhammer or 40k own a tablet?
if they did this it would limit there hobby market, if you didn't own an iapd for example and this happened would honestly go shell out £300 or more just so you can play the game?

The bolded made me laugh so hard. Implying that GWs actual products are affordable in of themselves.

I for one welcome our new digital overlords.

 yakface wrote:

GW's entire sales strategy in the last few years has been to highlight the fact that their audience is mainly made up of people who have the 'toy soldier gene' and are therefore willing to spend extreme amounts of money on products that they perceive to be worthy of that extreme valuation...which invites the people who don't see the extreme value in those products to GTFO out the GW hobby.

True, but there is a flaw in their logic; people with "the toy soldier gene" actually come for the toy soldiers. What GW sell in digital are just rules and background (pictures can be found elsewhere for free, anyway).

There is a difference about collecting something "physical" and something "digital". Beside, why buying bad rules when you can just use the models in another good, better thought game system?

We'll see what will happen in the future, anyway.

I kind of think this could happen .. but me personally, I won't be buying any non-printed books because I don't have a tablet and I absolutely hate reading anything longer than a text message on my phone. Good idea for the kids I guess, but not for old people like me.

I may get an iPad some day, but it won't be to read wargame books. I prefer to read them the old fashioned way.

 Bull0 wrote:

Yeah, let's just slip that in there, at some point in the past GW have done "something" worse than forcing players to either buy an "iPad" or stop playing. Care to say what that was? And just because I feel duty-bound to counter this misinformation when it surfaces, you do not need an iPad to read digital codexes, just the "enhanced edition" versions with image galleries etc. They also release them as ePubs and Mobis that you can read on your phone or computer, or print out.

Great, so I only have to haul my desktop to my bud's place when I want a game.

Man, digital revolution is so convenient.

Backfire wrote:

 Bull0 wrote:

Yeah, let's just slip that in there, at some point in the past GW have done "something" worse than forcing players to either buy an "iPad" or stop playing. Care to say what that was? And just because I feel duty-bound to counter this misinformation when it surfaces, you do not need an iPad to read digital codexes, just the "enhanced edition" versions with image galleries etc. They also release them as ePubs and Mobis that you can read on your phone or computer, or print out.

Great, so I only have to haul my desktop to my bud's place when I want a game.

Man, digital revolution is so convenient.

Nice try but you can print the epub codexes.

Beyond that obviously misinformed statement, the rumor doesn't say GW will be removing all printed books anytime soon, just pushing the digital ones more (my guess is that they don't make as much profit directly on the digital books but they cut costs dramatically on them this way).

I know rumours are for sharing..... but this is clearly not true at all. The app maybe, but scrapping non-limited edition books......

I don't believe this rumor.

Personally, I welcome this rumour. Yes, I love having a codex in hand as I love reading an actual book, but if the digital codices have something like an army builder in, this would make life so much easier and cut a lot of time when deciding an army.

To be honest, most of you are moaning about having to shell out for an iPad, now most people I know or just see around have a smartphone, problem solved you can read the codex on your phone! That's £300-400 saved right there! Digital codices are cheaper.

I'd like to see (if this rumour comes out as true)
1. Codex with an army builder built in.
2. Android versions to be interactive like their Apple counterparts
3. Limited edition codex still released in conjunction
4. Paper codices printed to order.

I would really like this.

2) is entirtely possible - the ibook interactive contenet is 100% compatible with Android, they just dont publish to Android as yet. LIterally hitting abutton would do it.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I don't buy it. Think of those pages and pages in tiny print of retailers in the US in white dwarf. I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to assume those stores average 2-3 of each codex on hand at any given time. Multiply that by the number of books and then the number of stores and then multiply by retail and you're looking at a ridiculous amount of money they'd be cutting off.

All digital products are English only. Now look at all those customers in Europe (outside UK and Ireland), Asia, Latin America, Quebec. GW would really losing ridiculous amounts of money not serving non-English markets with those. Makes no sense, but they do.

Cutting all Finecast and metal would invalidate all Codices and armybooks, esp. the HQ sections. Would be really stupid to do that. We will see.

On the other hand, assume that GW is not led by gamers or people familiar with the game, but by lawyers and bean counters. Then only selling limited edition prints for double/triple price and digital products with even better profit margin makes sense. Also discontinuing non-plastics for their worse profit margin. And you get rid of those hated Chinese printer leaks, which makes GW lawyers happy. So you get better profit and better security. That it doesn't make sense for gamers doesn't count, as GW is a yes-company and doesn't listen to internal or external feedback. As long as total revenue is flat and Tom Kirby get his 1 Mio £, that's good enough.

Well, external feedback on Finecast was pretty strongly negative, and we're fairly sure that's already on the way out...

gw will drop space marines before they drop physical codexes. Colour me unimpressed.

Pedro Kantor wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nope.

Nope nope nope nope.

Don't buy it. Not for a second.

Let me add another "Nope nope nope nope nope" to this as well.

Me too.Nope,nope,nope and nope.

As one who likes to collect the actual books,i really do not see it happening.I am not a technophobe,but most ( if not all compatible tablets ) are out of my cash reach.

Another nope, nope, nope, nope and nope.

Too many people don't like digital.... Digital is in English only so many resons against this rumor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xruslanx wrote:
gw will drop space marines before they drop physical codexes. Colour me unimpressed.

Wich is never.....

I don't believe it either.

 dakkajet wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
gw will drop space marines before they drop physical codexes. Colour me unimpressed.

Wich is never.....

Thank you for explaining that statement for us.

As for the rumour... I mean, who knows? It does sound like something they would pull if they think it would save/make them more money. Do we have sales figures on their digital codices?

I don't see them dropping print codices. That would make it impossible for a LOT of people to play the game. Yes, pretty much everyone has a personal computer, but I'm not printing out a 140 page codex.

I also don't see GW doing this after making such a big deal about full color, hard cover codices.

Some possible future things we can see with this in mind:

1) Updates quietly done with only a publish date change to show for it (what fix? what update? it is all good).
2) Through the App you have to renew your "subscription", yes, you do not own it you only get the license to view it for a year...

The only thing that makes me hesitate using only a printed copy is "search" is so handy when trying to find anything.
GW may not even bother with an index.

All these small publications like a new codex update for an old one, new rules for emerging units, large fluff publications were all released through WD, now they are trying to micro transaction them all. First time ever I have stopped buying WD because there is little of value in it, they took it all out to be sold. It is truly now just an advertising rag.

Below is entirely fiction but how I see the future for their models:

Next we will have the "GW miniature printer": buy the introductory $300 box set (the printer) with the 30 model units licensing included (free!!!!) and go to their website and make your selections and it will download your models and go to work! Do not forget to purchase more of the Citadel "armorplas" TM for printing: you would not want to run out (costs like gold and sells like it!!!). You could later buy the $200 add-on for vehicle size printing, the $400 for apocalypse units and $800 for the titan builder model (special deals included for "armorplas" TM with this purchase!). All "GW miniature printers" come in various models as well: character quality (add $200), display quality (add $400) and golden daemon (add $800). Note: at any time certain models may no longer be supported for "legacy" printers since we want to ensure the highest quality output GW experience where possible. Some exceptions with quality level upgrades. You want this too right???

I think I got the heebie jeebies writing that bit.

Some fiction to brighten your day!!!

I can see it. If the only option of a paper book is a collectors edition or printing an epub, they'll get more demand for the collectors editions (which appear to be struggling a bit).

With the print runs declining (less customers, we assume), their margins will also start to decline (less economy of scale), and digital publishing becomes more profitable.

In GW's eyes, if they drop the regular editions for digital and collectors they force customers to either 1. buy the digital, for almost pure low risk profit or 2. buy the collectors edition at a huge markup.

You have to remember that the decision makers at GW aren't gamers, and view gamers with contempt. So what seems like a serious own goal to us may make perfect sense to them from their detached perspective.

Faced with the above choices, I'd buy/acquire an epub and print it, or just drop out altogether for some other game I can use my man-dollies with. But I can definitely see GW doing it.

I don't buy this either. the digital codexes have been for NICHE armies that IMO GW would not have done a full on codex release for. If GW's gameplan was this they wouldn't have gone down the hardback book route. The special digital codexes are the quick and dirty way to get a codex out with minimal fuss so that they can get on with their 'regular' codexes.

 Erasoketa wrote:
Good luck trying to sell the games to 12 years old kids in Spain with codexes available only online and in English. It would be a suicidal move for GW here.

That's strange, don't kids learn foreign languages in Spain?

Where I live, a translation would be seen as condescending.

Rostere wrote:

 Erasoketa wrote:
Good luck trying to sell the games to 12 years old kids in Spain with codexes available only online and in English. It would be a suicidal move for GW here.

That's strange, don't kids learn foreign languages in Spain?

Where I live, a translation would be seen as condescending.

But where you live, you know, isn't the rest of the world.

I MUCH prefer my digital books, have a kindle a Kobo and my Android tab. A lot of the rules I use for games are on these but I like what I like and others like other stuff. I was about to buy the Codex Inquisition eBook but was a bit put of by the price (I've yet to buy a GW digital army book/codex).

Two things I like about eBooks

1, saves space
2, cheaper

GW meets the first one and meets the second only just. There prices for eBooks are just to high for me to try one out I'm afraid.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
2) is entirtely possible - the ibook interactive contenet is 100% compatible with Android, they just dont publish to Android as yet. LIterally hitting abutton would do it.

What button is that?

Is it the Checkout button at the apple store?

 randomtoaster wrote:
Personally, I welcome this rumour. Yes, I love having a codex in hand as I love reading an actual book, but if the digital codices have something like an army builder in, this would make life so much easier and cut a lot of time when deciding an army.

While it would be nice to have an army building program included with the codex, you don't actually believe they'd do that for free, do you? The addition of that kind of functionality by GW will almost certainly be accompanied by a hefty price increase regardless of any savings they can generate by cutting out middlemen like googleplay/apple appstore.

Cant see it happening, how much would they lose to piracy alone? If your forced to spend £30 for a digital download people will just get torrents.

Daston wrote:
Cant see it happening, how much would they lose to piracy alone? If your forced to spend £30 for a digital download people will just get torrents.

Yeah, this is totally true! Right now there are no torrents for print books that people download so making everything go digital would totally create all of those torrents and force people to use them.