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.

To be clear, I am not predicting that GW is going down. We have to see their half-year and full-year reports to find if the latest bad results were a blip or a sign of a serious problem.

For the sake of discussion though, let us assume that over the next three years GW's sales continue to drop, pushing them into major decline and downsizing.

It seems to me that GW have made four contributions to wargaming in general.

1. By their high street presence and appeal to youngsters they have made wargaming more popular and mainstream as a hobby thus increasing the size of the market overall.
2. Over the years, their design studio has developed a large amount of talent who have gone on to form their own companies, e.g. Studio McVey.
3. They have established an acceptance of high quality, high price rulebooks, increasing the professionalism of the presentation.
4. The popularity of 40K created an after-market for variant bitz and models.

In my view the most obvious sufferers of a GW collapse would be companies who depend on selling into the (mainly 40K) after market.

I wonder if the entire market would shrink in the longer run for the lack of a major recruiting point.

I think the opposite; the demise of the so called elephant in the room would have a beneficial effect on the industry, I believe. I think, here in the UK anyway, GW stores disappearing from the high street might help more FLGS step up and fill the void where hitherto they have been squeezed out. Again, here in the UK, we really suffer from a lack of decent, independent retailers as GW have aggressively expanded and squeezed them out over the years. I would much prefer the UK gaming scene to be more like that in the US, where GW have a minor on street prescence and it is the FLGS that do the bulk of the heavy lifting. As to the other points, I can only think that GW shrinking or disappearing will only help more smaller companies step up to take a bite if the pie. Bear mind, the wargaming market in general is growing so a large player gowing under can only help smaller companies to fill the vacuum.

I think it would have a negative impact on the hobby.

Im not naive enough to suggest that GW is the hobby - they're part[b] of the hobby, but they are a big chunk of it. thing is, we're the hardcore gamers that are "in the know" about whats out there. Warmachine/Hordes, Flames of War, Malifaux, Infinity etc. To the average Joe on the street in the UK, they'll vaguely know something about Warhammers, from GWs rather than any of the other games. GW has a historic presence, and as much as it can be said, is associated and synonymous with wargames (like kleenex and tissues, hoover and vacuum cleaners) to a greater extent than any other game. Especially in the UK, everyone has some old warhammers in the attic when they were a kid, or knew someone who did. Without that "brand recognition", and i use that term very loosely, you have an extremely niche hobby. Mention warhammer, and they know what you're talking about. Mention Warmachine and they think its to do with Iron Man.

the second issue is that due to its presence, GW games are often the entry point for folks. This was more the case historically where when you got into wargames, it was through 40k. its less and less true these days (quite a few folks are starting wargaming via WMH, FoW, X-Wing etc) but its still a relevant factor. How many of us 20-somethings and 30-somethings got into the hobby via 40k? And my question is, without that gateway, how many people would get into it? I think it would be a lot less than people realise. Im not sure if the other companies would be able to step up and maintain the hobby, or will people disappear, and the hobby retract? Are we enough to maintain the hobby by bringing in new blood, or will we all die off or walk away eventually leaving a void? I'd argue GW has the ability to attract folks beyond "geek culture" due to its brand name. It gets people off the street. I'd wonder if other wargames would end up recruiting just from the small minority that is geek culture, and those already exposed to it, rather than the larger potential pool.

Regarding the FLGS issue, even in the UK, the FLGSs have a presence. Here in Scotland, the main gaming hubs are independents - 6s to hit in Edinburgh, (and they're making a massive move up in the world), Common Ground Games in Stirling, Highlander Games in Dundee, and you have the other various shops in Glasgow etc. My local (worlds at war) closed recently, but the owner cited increased competition in the region - i think he named something like 15 local LGSs within an hour's drive here in Scotland, and thats not including any of the GWs. the thing with LGSs is they dont make their money on wargames. they make money on wargames, card games, board games, comics etc. But will they maintain wargames as a big thing without the behemoth that is GW? they're also small and local and few have national, let alone global reach. GW is worldwide.

Personally, what i think would be an interesting direction is GW doing a Sega, and turning into a contract manufacturer/ distributer. Imagine if GW manufacturing (with all they experience and technology) manufactured the plastic ranges for other games. Imagine if the GW retail chain was spun out to a greater extend, and used to sell all these other games, like they used to way back in the day. you'd have a worldwide chain gaming store. Not good for LGSs but i could see GW seeing benefits in it.

Overall, i think the hobby would continue, but it would be smaller, and probably more niche. It would definately have a few years worth of uncertainties and concerns.

Deadnight - I agree.

I think GW going wouldn't leave more of a market share for other companies, it would decrease the size of the market, leaving a smaller slice of the pie left for the others.

Some would continue and would thrive without GW however a lot of the smaller less established companies I would see going under and the size of the market would decrease that much it wouldn't be profitable for them

You would see 50% decrease in war gaming products in store. Some roughly 1/3 would close within 6 months. Most local stores are heavily invested in gw products. Paints, minis, rule books and modeling supplies. Citadel being gone will hurt other war games because they are not used only for gw products. Within 3-5 years it would stablize but the first 3 years you would see the shut down of a ton of stores. After that other games would pick up the slack but the initial shut down would hurt due to products one day going from retail to worthless over night.

I think it's have a negitive impact, even if gaming shops don't close down due to investment in GW products, 40K is, as I like to say the "Dungeons and Dragons of table top wargaming"
it's the one game in the genre most people who don't play know about. it's that "gateway game" for a LOT of gamers, and it being gone means that the community likely will have it's growth slowed

Aren't one of the results of GW shrinking / retreating from their major stores in the US (Glen Burnie, is it?), been that the 'best' / most popular, former GW managers having opened up FLGS' in their place. - I think this has happened in more than one location in the USA.

For the UK though, I think that can happen in some places, however in general, I think there would be a big short-medium term bad period for wargaming.

What I can see though, is wargaming become more and more integrated with board game stores, where the larger ones of them, which are already stocking X-Wing and Attack Wing - and potentially soon Mars Attacks, may start expanding into the other wargames.

In general though, I'd say the rest of the world will be fine and even prosper, it will be the UK that will mostly go through the hard period due to the lack of FLGS.

Problem is not so much GW going down, but what happens to the corpse, dare say someone would buy it for the IPR, and if that was a suitably trollish organisation that could cause all sorts of expensive to resolve troubles.

It would on the plus side free up the better staff at GW to work for others and someone would no doubt pick up the manufacturing side

In the UK

there would be a major short term crash in gamers where all the folk that are GW exclusive (and that's still a lot) found they could not carry on getting new stuff and would give up (a minority would migrate to other manufacturers)

In the short term Independent stores would be relatively unaffected as not too many are heavily GW dependent as we have so many GW stores

In the medium term there would be far fewer people entering the hobby, this would badly effect other manufacturers and game stores. IN the UK at least lots of people first step into the hobby via GW stores or clubs playing GW games, some would still do so but I'll guestimate 30% or less than there are now

Long term things would pick up and improve, some of the bigger manufacturers might just start advertising in mainstream media (we moan at GW for not promoting the Hobby, but neither does anybody else in any major way, you see adverts from other companies but they are very niche, forums for those already in the hobby, thier own websites) as the found their new customer base falling. A new stable base would emerge, my guess is it would be significantly smaller than previously if they were lucky 50% of the GW ere numbers

I've less experience with the US market, but they've got more active mid sized players, are less dependant on GW high street stores you'd probably see less of an impact but there would still be a significant hit.

And Europe would fall somewhere between the tow extremes

Question is often asked with other companies who are/were major players in other industries.

Generally the same fears exist...no one is big enough, has enough reach, has enough product...

Generally the same thing happens...not much of anything, and life goes on.

By the time it actually happened, the replacements would be well seated to move in. The stores that don't prepare for it - will fail, which is a good way to separate the chaff.

I doubt you would see anyone buy the manufacturing. Maybe Renedra or a company already doing it might use the opportunity to pick up some newer machines on the cheap though.

I doubt anyone would buy the IP in any real way...just not that much there there.

Largely agreed with Filbert and Orlando. I'm certainly no economist, but from different little things I see, I'd guess the market would shrink a bit in the long term (after bouncing back after a minor crash) but not to the extent of some doom-saying here.

1. As Filbert says, GW's high street (more side-street these days?) presence is at the expense of FLGS presence. Maybe if GW moved out, they could regain a bit of that presence. Maybe they might gain enough interest and business to stay there.
As Filbert also says, the wargaming market is growing while GW is shrinking. Fewer people are buying GW products. How much of that deficit is made up of the target market - little Timmy and his parents looking for a new distraction for a couple of months? I dunno. Either way, sales are dropping, and I've read the anecdotes of new kids sneering at GW prices and going straight to Warmachine and the like. People aren't just leaving GW but beginning to bypass it entirely. GW is still a big fish in a small pond, but it's becoming less and less relevant.
After a while it might only be left with those diehard customers that won't even consider anything outside the core two, which is looking more and more likely. If GW goes under, will the loss of those diehards to the wider wargaming market, really cripple it? They're not really contributing to it as it is, and it somehow manages to thrive. I doubt they'd be any huge loss. Anyway, I'm convinced that a lot of those stick with GW mostly because of 'convenience' (with a hefty side of spoonfeeding) and inertia. Not to torture a metaphor, but if GW stops stuffing bits of chewed-up worms into their gaping, squawking beaks, I'll say some of them will fly the nest to greener wargaming pastures rather than sit there and starve.

Bypassing is as Deadnight says. What Deadnight doesn't say is that kids were able to get into wargaming before GW came along, as amazing as that might seem. Some of them are still around as old grognards who discovered wargaming via historical minis (often Airfix 1/72 plastics) or discovering Don Featherstone's books in the school library, and still shake their heads at this Warhammer fad. Rich Clarke of Too Fat Lardies is trying to revive that, to some degree. Is it timely, given GW's shrinking? Will that give it a boost? I don't know. I'd like to think it would.

Edit: Sean reminded me of another small point. The Renedra guys are ex-GW, and generally have a waiting list of 18 months, IIRC. Aside from the plastic injection machines, if GW goes under that's going to leave a few people with the skills and experience jobless. I'd guess most or all would move on to similar jobs outside the wargaming remit, but Renedra boosting it's workforce, or even a new PI business catering to the hobby, sounds like a promising prospect.

2. They also developed Gary Morley and Trish Carden. And some have left because GW was constricting their creativity too much rather than feeding it. (Andy Chambers, at least? Or Rick Priestly, who developed GW rather than vice-versa.) Bit of a non-point, IMO.

3. I'm not immune to the shiny rulebook syndrome, but I'm not convinced that it's a triumph for the wargaming hobby. It starts to wear off after a while. I'm not so thrilled that a lot of new games or rulesets have a £30+ price tag and a big coffee-table brick to haul around to gaming venues, even if the practical and aesthetic contents are dynamite. (or especially not thrilled if only the aesthetic contents are) I have a few on my rulebook shelf, but for some of them I hunted or waited for discounts before buying them. Case in point, God of Battles. It's a really nice, tactical set of rules, but if you take out half of the clatter of (usually large) colour photos and the rest of the extraneous crap (and as we're talking Foundry's fantasy minis and Kev Dallimore's painting, I do mean crap) that enormous book could easily be a about a third of it's current size, and less than it's original price tag, even with colour and hardbacks. I say original 'cos it seems the size and price didn't attract many buyers, and it seems to be constantly discounted these days.
Not to mention that some of my favourite, or most interesting-looking rulesets are slim paperbacks, almost pamphlets, or downloadable files.

4. I guess they'd have to branch out or die. I'd be interested to see the former, wouldn't lose much sleep over the latter. The world doesn't need too many more space knights in armour that looks like finely-filigreed dustbins.

1- The IP would be bought.

2- There are no FLGS that are 100% exclusive GW, in fact in the rest of the world i would venture the trend is the exact opposite with GWs volume ever decreasing. It is not GW that keeps Hobby store opens, its Magic the gathering.

3- On the hobby side of things, Vallejo paints are by far the best acrylics out there, the only "paints" worth saving on GWs side are the washes which would be missed.

4- Market share would not disappear, it would only change names, the hobby is wargamming not Warhammer. GW might be the intro to it now, should it dissappear many companies would "fight to the death" for the lucrative spot.

Initially, I expect that the industry will take a hit. GW is a big player, especially in the UK, and I expect that we will see the effects of it going down. You'd not only lose GW stores, but GW will also take down the symbiotic companies which make their major business by making stuff for use in GW games. FLGS' which are heavily dependent on GW will also fold, however, a lot of FLGS's I know of rely on MTG, Boardgames, and/or collectables to pay the bills, and simply use wargaming to turn a profit- while GW going belly up might hurt these guys, most will probably survive.

Almost immediately, however, you will begin to see other companies fighting for dominance, and eventually one will find itself as a big leader in terms of market share. While I expect that, without a big force driving it the market will shrink, this new leader will be able to grow the market back up. The Wargaming market might even get bigger if the eventual winner is someone willing to actually try to grow the market, as opposed to letting the market just come to them.

This thread needs a qualifier by region. From the sounds of it, the hobby in the UK would take a hit simply because of the larger percentage of "gaming" stores that are GW stores.

Here in the US, I doubt there would be much issue. The FLGSs might take a bit of a hit initially, however most of them have a strong MtG following that's a good percentage of their business, and they also have other war-games like Warmahordes that already have a growing community. There'd probably be a bit of a shake up, but in the end the industry would probably end up much healthier as the barrier to entry would be lower and there'd be more competition driving innovation and variety.

If GW went down, the gaming community will shrink in the long run. In the short run a lot of game companies will flourish because I believe people will want their gaming and will be forced to go else where now or quit. That is short term.

In long term, the Hobby will be dying a slow death unless someone else can pick up. While as someone said, GW is NOT the HOBBY, but without GW the Hobby would not be as big as it is now.

GW is like Star Wars in a way. Without Star Wars there would be no Star Trek Movies. Without Star Trek Movies there would be no more Star Trek shows. Without Star Trek shows, there not be other Sci Fi shows like Battlestar Galactica and Fire Fly, Stargate etc.

Without Star Wars the toy line wouldn't be so big. The comic toy line wouldn't be hugs as it is now. There could be no Hero Clix and other spin off games.

Without GW we wouldn't have people dissatisfied and being felt disrespected that they would have to quit GW and go else where. Without these dissatisfied people there would be no Privateer Press and Warmahordes. There would be no Inifinty and other companies. Wait, maybe there would be, but no way in hell would they be as popular now without these dissatisfied people.

So while GW is not the Hobby and didn't start the Hobby, they made a big impact on the Hobby to make it popular and show that there is other games out there.

So in the long run, if there is no more GW and PP and Inifinty (sorry forget the company name) can't pick up the reign of GW then the Hobby will become a very niches hobby again. Without GW the popularity will not be there as there is now unless someone else can step up to the plate.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
I doubt anyone would buy the IP in any real way...just not that much there there.

Why?

Bandai would probably spend some major cash to buy the 40k IP. Their ranges are sorely lacking in the Sci-Fi department, I think they could really be interested in Taus and all these mecha things.

Hasbro would probably be interested in the WHFB IP for the very same reasons. Adding elves, dwarves, skelettons, vampires and other über-creative stuff to D&D would probably be a nice idea.

Litcheur wrote:

Hasbro would probably be interested in the WHFB IP for the very same reasons. Adding elves, dwarves, skelettons, vampires and other über-creative stuff to D&D would probably be a nice idea.

You'd need to buy Warhammer to put Elves, Dwarves, Skeletons and Vampires in things?

Davor wrote:
If GW went down, the gaming community will shrink in the long run. In the short run a lot of game companies will flourish because I believe people will want their gaming and will be forced to go else where now or quit. That is short term.

...some stuff...

So in the long run, if there is no more GW and PP and Inifinty (sorry forget the company name) can't pick up the reign of GW then the Hobby will become a very niches hobby again. Without GW the popularity will not be there as there is now unless someone else can step up to the plate.

I think you are greatly over estimating the importance of GW. They haven't had that great of an impact outside of a very narrow segment of a very narrow hobby. That hobby existed before and will exist after. There are a few things that GW has influenced to some extent (ridiculously large shoulder pads...though to be fair - the Japanese have had a greater impact there).

There is likely an easier argument to be made for a game IP like Battletech to be that significant (dozens of video games, spinoffs, cartoons, influenced movies, hundreds of books...) - though largely I tend to believe that it is less about the IP and more about the void that needed filling. Were it not 40K, it would have been any number of other games that were developed in similar ways during the same time period.

Because GW does very little to actually build and grow the wargaming hobby, their impact when gone will be insignificant. If they were actually advertising and recruiting in any active manner - the loss would be more severe - but they aren't so it won't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Riquende wrote:

Litcheur wrote:

Hasbro would probably be interested in the WHFB IP for the very same reasons. Adding elves, dwarves, skelettons, vampires and other über-creative stuff to D&D would probably be a nice idea.

You'd need to buy Warhammer to put Elves, Dwarves, Skeletons and Vampires in things?

If you ask GW...then yes, of course. They invented the internet too.

I do believe though that that was a bit of French humor that is hard to pick up on online (at least I hope as much). Note it also applies to the comment above regarding Bandai and the mecha things...which are wholly original to 40K...invented while watching clouds and thinking about butterflies or however their design studio comes up with ideas.

 Riquende wrote:

Litcheur wrote:

Hasbro would probably be interested in the WHFB IP for the very same reasons. Adding elves, dwarves, skelettons, vampires and other über-creative stuff to D&D would probably be a nice idea.

You'd need to buy Warhammer to put Elves, Dwarves, Skeletons and Vampires in things?

That's the point. I wouldn't spend a penny on the settings. Especially the WHFB one.

Taking a "not Earth" map, putting the not-french humans in not-France, the not-german humans in not-Germany, the not-arab humans in not-north-africa, the jungle in not-south-america... Meh. Not even talking about Albion, Norska, Ind, Cathay, Nippon...
If you ever wondered, Australia & New Zealand are the "Lost Isles" (of... whatever).
And Canada is Naggaroth.
Just add some good/evil dwarves/elves, vampires, egyptian mummies (not scottish ones), ratmen, lizardmen, goatmen, dogmen and birdmen. Wow, that's really, really impressive.

The 40k setting is slightly more interesting, but again, it's not that great. Not-Terminators fighting against Not-Mechas, Not-Space-Elves, Not-Space-Nuns, Not-Space-Dwarves... *yawn*...
I would spend some spare cash on Slaves to Darkness and Lost and Damned, though.

The moulds are definitely worth something too, but it doesn't means a company would buy all the ranges. Or be interested in adding wolf-flying-dumpster or copter-piloting-dwarves to their range.

Davor wrote:

In long term, the Hobby will be dying a slow death unless someone else can pick up. While as someone said, GW is NOT the HOBBY, but without GW the Hobby would not be as big as it is now.

GW is like Star Wars in a way. Without Star Wars there would be no Star Trek Movies. Without Star Trek Movies there would be no more Star Trek shows. Without Star Trek shows, there not be other Sci Fi shows like Battlestar Galactica and Fire Fly, Stargate etc.

Without Star Wars the toy line wouldn't be so big. The comic toy line wouldn't be hugs as it is now. There could be no Hero Clix and other spin off games.

Lol way to talk out of your ass, Star Trek show predates Star Wars episode 4 by a decade. Human condition (sociological and political) Sci Fi novel go back way longer than that.

I think you missed the subtlety of what Davor wrote there.

He said Star Trek movies not shows. The reason Star Trek The Motion Picture came out the way it did, in the way it was, genuinely was to jump onto the Star Wars hype.

 Compel wrote:
I think you missed the subtlety of what Davor wrote there.

He said Star Trek movies not shows. The reason Star Trek The Motion Picture came out the way it did, in the way it was, genuinely was to jump onto the Star Wars hype.

Or was Star Wars jumping on the void of the Star Trek Show?. That is why is bs. Chicken or the egg and in the end it does not matter.

I imagine, in the UK at least, there would be a period in which the market would contract due to the lack of FLGS around here. Long term though, I think the shops would appear (there's enough money in board and card games for game shops to spring up, and I would expect miniatures games to come with them) and the market would be just the same. GW has grown it, but I don't think their absence would shrink it. The Internet is around these days, and TTGs is a lively enough niche that it won't drop off the map from the brief loss of a few shops.

That said, I got into 40k through a friend, and I suppose the reason I stayed with it until university was because of White Dwarf and the GW shops. It was nice to spend time in the shop, and it was nice to go into the GW whenever I went to a new town. But then, if this all happened post-GW, my friend might have got me into Infinity. Then I'd be hooked on that, and stick with it due to internet discussion and trips to the FLGS. Instead of my friends (who were mostly recruited from the same word-of-mouth source, so would have been playing the same game even if it wasn't 40k) agreeing to try out most of the SGs together, we'd have been doing the same for Dreadball or Warmachine. I don't think there would be any real difference; GW's built up the industry, but it's just not needed the way it used to be.

I do think, though, that the average age of the market would come to skew higher, because only GW is really gunning for the youngsters. Possibly that would represent a section of the market being sliced out, but again in the long term I'd guess the result would be a change in the perception of the hobby as a whole (much like video games, with the expansion of their demographic to include mature players). Given the nature of the whole deal, I think the stigma of TTGs as a child's pastime is something artificially generated by GW. I mean, wargames were always nerdy, but it's only thanks to GW that they became childish.

Davor wrote:
GW is like Star Wars in a way. Without Star Wars there would be no Star Trek Movies. Without Star Trek Movies there would be no more Star Trek shows. Without Star Trek shows, there not be other Sci Fi shows like Battlestar Galactica and Fire Fly, Stargate etc.

Right. But now there are those things. If there were no futher Star Wars films in development, would they go away? Star Wars may have popularised sci-fi (or not; I don't know much about 70s sci-fi), but most of those shows arose in its absence. It happened, it created a market, then it went away and the market continued. Then it came back, but there might be ladies reading so let's not get into that.

I think that it would be more of a reorganization than a collapse. Before they failed I'd see them close their retail stores, which I would think is a good thing. The relationship between GW and FLGS' s is notoriously bad, thought perhaps less bad of late, but removing the company stores would force them to forge a relationship with the FLGS, give them better access to product, inventory return, promotional product. Swapping from a retail business to a distributor could save them millions in overhead every year, and reaching out to the FLGS could widen their market without increasing overhead. Give the support to them in place of the company stores and typically we'll have more play space with the benefits of all the GW store toys.

If it's either that or failure they have little choice right? ...right?

While ST:TMP was released to cash in on the sci-fi popularity in the wake of Star Wars in the 80's, it was an idea that Roddenberry had brewing for a long time which would have happened eventually, Star Wars or not.

xxvaderxx wrote:

Or was Star Wars jumping on the void of the Star Trek Show?. That is why is bs. Chicken or the egg and in the end it does not matter.

You don't just 'jump in to the void' because it exists. Star Trek had been cancelled (by Abe Simpson no less) and there was no grand wave of sci fi that followed it. TV networks, film studios and the public didn't have a sci fi void that needed filling, they didn't want sci fi. Gene Roddenberry couldn't get his Phase 2 show off the ground throughout the 1970s, the pilot was later turned into The Motion Picture after Star Wars.

Star Wars itself was a reimagining of the old Buck Rogers serials of the '20s (George Lucas couldn't get the rights, so had to write his own version), it owed nothing to Star Trek. We can see the hype that Star Wars created also by looking at TV in the wake of it: shows like Battlestar Galactica, and the Gil Gerard Buck Rogers (full circle much?) getting greenlit. In short, you are bang wrong, and clearly know nothing of what you speak, though I can't be bothered going back to read how this relates at all to gaming.

Also, missed sarcasm earlier. My bad, misinterpreted the emoticon.

To go back to the more general point, I think we're now at a point where it wouldn't matter if GW went. Other games are out there and well known. More and more people are becoming connected to news channels that aren't GW specific (rather than just getting everything from White Dwarf... or whatever it is now). There has never been a greater time in world history for people involved in niche hobbies to find each other and hobby together. Companies have sprung up recently to cover most of GW's offerings - whereas before you'd have people who had moved on to other systems still relying on Citadel paints, terrain, basing materials, etc etc, we're at a point now where alternatives exist for everything, and thanks to the efforts of some of the larger online retailers, it's not hard to get hold of any of it.

In the UK there would be a reduced uptake of the hobby for a while in the pre-/early teen age groups. That's about the sum of what would happen, but in time a new generation of FLGS would emerge, and I'd hope things like school clubs would pick up some of the slack.

xxvaderxx wrote:


Or was Star Wars jumping on the void of the Star Trek Show?. That is why is bs. Chicken or the egg and in the end it does not matter.

A new Trek series was in development at that time period, Star Trek Phase II. A lot of what became the Motion Picture was in the pilot and a few scripted episodes. With the unprecedented success of Star Wars Paramount decided to relaunch it as a movie franchise.

Would Phase II have led to a popular franchise as the movies? Would TNG have come along? hard to say. My crystal ball is in the shop.

On topic - should GW fold there may be an initial downturn in the hobby as the remaining players try to snap up GW's market share. Now that there are more games out there - WMH, Infinity, Dropzone, Bolt Action, and others, I think the industry will survive. It would be an object lesson to each company that they are not invaluable.

Palm and Blackberry were on the top of the world in the cell phone game only they failed adjust to the new players, new circumstances, and a new way to do things.

Litcheur wrote:

 Riquende wrote:

Litcheur wrote:

Hasbro would probably be interested in the WHFB IP for the very same reasons. Adding elves, dwarves, skelettons, vampires and other über-creative stuff to D&D would probably be a nice idea.

You'd need to buy Warhammer to put Elves, Dwarves, Skeletons and Vampires in things?

That's the point. I wouldn't spend a penny on the settings. Especially the WHFB one.

Taking a "not Earth" map, putting the not-french humans in not-France, the not-german humans in not-Germany, the not-arab humans in not-north-africa, the jungle in not-south-america... Meh. Not even talking about Albion, Norska, Ind, Cathay, Nippon...
If you ever wondered, Australia & New Zealand are the "Lost Isles" (of... whatever).
And Canada is Naggaroth.
Just add some good/evil dwarves/elves, vampires, egyptian mummies (not scottish ones), ratmen, lizardmen, goatmen, dogmen and birdmen. Wow, that's really, really impressive.

The 40k setting is slightly more interesting, but again, it's not that great. Not-Terminators fighting against Not-Mechas, Not-Space-Elves, Not-Space-Nuns, Not-Space-Dwarves... *yawn*...
I would spend some spare cash on Slaves to Darkness and Lost and Damned, though.

The moulds are definitely worth something too, but it doesn't means a company would buy all the ranges. Or be interested in adding wolf-flying-dumpster or copter-piloting-dwarves to their range.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. The Warhammer settings aren't remotely original, nor are they important enough. I'll be surprised, no, shocked, if the IP gets picked up. For a bit of context, Dungeons and Dragons barely survived the collapse of TSR, and only because a fan happened to be in a position of enough authority at Hasbro to pick it up. D&D was a full-blown cultural phenomenon, and it almost went the way of the dodo. Who will do the same for 40K?

Alot of new people coming into this hooby aren't starting with GW games any more. War-machine, Infinity, and the wide selection from Spartan Games has started taking that role since they have less barriers to entry then GW's selection.


Companies who's who business model is based around making conversion bits for GW's plastic kits will be hit the hardest by GW dieing if it was to happen.

Well, is the miniature wargaming market different enough that past lessons from other markets wouldn't give us insight as to a possible GW-less future?

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable about business would know of some examples in other markets, but I can't imagine the loss of GW would significantly alter the way the hobby is proceeding currently.

Really, the biggest losses I could see would be GW's aftermarket retailers, as mentioned a few times already, and the cities who are solely provided by a GW for their wargaming needs.

I can't see it being a bad thing to lose such a monolithic entity in the hobby and have more companies all sharing the pie.