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I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

Hello Tom Kirby, welcome to Dakka!

But seriously, I'm sure dozens of people will be along shortly to express to you their many frustrations with GW's business practices.

Just remember everyone, if you choose to respond, you must remain polite!

It's not just about the prices, although that's certainly part of it. It's more of a 'death of a thousand cuts' sort of thing... High prices, published material full of unclear rules or misprints with no real rules support from the studio (they go through spurts of FAQ activity, and then fall to sporadic or nonexistent updates), the perceived pushing of the game into bigger and sillier directions, the refusal to acknowledge that any other games exist, and various comments over the years from GW higher-ups showing the complete and utter disdain within which they view their customer base and the general disconnect from the industry as a whole.

Just for starters.


Having said that, the last 6 months or so have seen a fairly significant change of direction for them, so it will be interesting to see where it goes. The current focus on FAQs is a promising start, and they seem to be trying to pull all the stops out on mini design again, which would suggest that they've finally started looking around at this burgeoning industry that has sprung up around them while they were ensconced in their ivory tower for the last decade...

It's giving me a bit more hope that 8th edition will return a playable game again...

Hello Tom Kirby, welcome to Dakka!


That made me chuckle.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

If you are just starting out, then I can only say to stay happy as long as you can. I recommend that you come back to your own post in six months of "The HHHobby."

Welcome to Dakka, BTW. Honestly.

Might I suggest, as you yourself admit to being poorly informed on the subject, that you go away and familiarize yourself with the issues people have with (or have had, a change in CEO has mitigated some of these at least a little)

- Cost of either starting or keeping up with changes
- Poor balance
- Using game edition advancement to try and manipulate more sales rather than fix what's broken.
- Heavy handed and often inappropriate legal action.
- Total disengagement from the community
- Downsizing of stores, often taking away people's space to play.
- What they did to Fantasy
- Using transitions in packaging or material to disguise huge price increases
- Refusal to show releases more than a week away
- What they've done to White Dwarf
- (my personal bugbear above nearly all else) removing player agency from games and replacing it with random.

There's probably others I've overlooked, and more personal ones for individuals, but that should get you started..

Thats because you haven't played long enough to have some of your favourite armies deleted, your favourite game (fantasy) deleted and many of the models you put hours of time and hundreds of dollars into rendered obsolete or useless due to their complete lack of ability to write proper rules.

Do you understand why now?

My list died with my previous computer but it was a three-page, single spaced, point form document of issues. Here are a few key points:

1) 40k 6th edition. Shafted multiple armies while giving local guard players everything that they wanted.

2) Spectacle Creep.

3) Price Creep.

4) 8th edition Randomhammer Fantasy. (I quit before Age of Sigmar)

5) Competitors are just better.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

ooooo, careful there, you can't say good things about GW on a forum j/k, well, kinda.
I see you joined Dakka yesterday (welcome) and not sure when you started playing Warhammer but I would council keeping an open mind when discussing GW on the INternetz anywhere[i] (and some salt) and just learn the game, enjoy your hobby and do what makes this fun and appealing to you to start in the first place. That said, you can get good civil conversation here.

Good luck!

I think the last five or so months show that most people are not arbitrarily hateful towards GW, but have instead been reacting to the company's (old) business model. A model that makes the mustached villain with his captured damsel seem relatable by comparison.

The one thing I did enjoy about the really dark years with GW was it got more people in alignment than ever before. It became harder and harder to group all criticisms as unfounded. Nowadays, it seems easier for people to point out the good (and bad) about the company. And the good is definitely on the rise. I've seen a lot of positivity regarding GW's releases these past few months. Now if they continue this momentum and apply it to fixing the games they spent the last ten years trying to milk to death, you'll see a lot of *really* positive fans.

A local guy who owns a comic shop had GW contact him about selling GW products. He was concerned about what he had heard that if he developed a local market for it GW would then open up a store in his city and compete directly with him and go after his customers. The rep told him that if he carried the product, they'd consider the region covered and there would be no reason to open a GW store.

He should have got that in writing, because 16 months later a GW store opened up. Then his shipments started getting delayed and he started getting short shipped new releases but the GW store always had the latest product in stock on release date.

He eventually transitioned to mostly Magic the Gathering as the gaming part of his business.

ShockTroopahs wrote:


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

Well, see there is the assumption that the card has that value while in the package. Anyone could wind up pulling that card from the pack and have bought it brand new for the price of a package of MTG cards.

That card is only worth an exorbitant amount on the secondary market, of which WotC sees exactly zero dollars only after having been purchased for the price of the card pack (about $3.99 iirc?)

Compare that with a product that is not a blind buy; one that can be compared with similar products; a product that has had the same tooling and
process used for at least 20 years (ex: Chaos Space Marines), other companies have demonstrated the ability to produce similar quality product with more quantity for less price.
Extreme price rises of nearly 25% in some cases and really 50% in others (Dire Avengers anyone?).

Not to mention the last ten years or so of ignoring input from the community.

So maybe that all has something to do with it?

Think if WotC started putting only 3 cards in a pack and charging an extra $0.50. Not only that, but also never updating an FAQ and removing corporate support from tournaments (yeah tournaments drive sales and official ones more so).

Cause Tom Kirby saw the company as a golden parachute basically and seemed hellbent almost on doing what needed to be done to make that better at the cost of all else. Roundtree was left with the mess and is trying to fix it up while Kirby continues to apparently wander around not being invited to their cool board room parties and such.

Stuff like the annual little thought out price hike of something like 5-10%... other stuff like look at those dire avengers that are more expensive now after their kit was reduced to 5 models than it was when it used to be 10 not even all that long ago. Trade embargo so they could enforce the exchange rate ignoring static prices. List could just keep going on about the absolutely stupid ideas Kirby pushed. As they are now however, they're slowly heading back in the right direction so as they get better I'd say that demonising would become rarer.

Honestly, it's the way they use the rules of the game to sell models.

This is the #1 issue people seem to have. An army you spent thousands building suddenly becomes obsolete based on overpowered units suddenly being added to another force.

Many other games try to achieve some level of balance. GW is more like Apple, the moment they decide to innovate, everything that came before is thrown out the window.

Read up on the Chapterhouse Studios case GW fought over a year or two, and GW's attitude to their players, their products, their IP and the original sources of that IP. There are some wonderful quotes you'll see repeated in people's sigs, and elsewhere.

I started to get pretty disenfranchised with GW over these 3 incidents:

1. Spots The Space Marine
2. Finecast
3. Chapterhouse

All show their unique way of working and how they feel about their customers.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
*Fresh-Faced New User*

Give it time.

It's not enough for some to simply avoid/boycott GW, you have to hate it. REALLY hate it.
GW have faced unique problems by virtue of being the longest-lasting and biggest, and are almost ubiquitous with wargaming to an outside perspective.
Most games companies would mess themselves to be big enough to worry about some of the issues GW have had to deal with.
They have made mistakes, real clangers in some cases.
They were pilloried for their restrictive trade agreements for example - yet now PP and FFG/Asmodee now have similar.
They're also unique in being the only wargaming company that have their own retail arm which in itself presents problems.

But yeah.
Hurty feelz /ex-girlfriend syndrome.
With a heavy side of entitlement.

Also, it is like hating Microsoft. They are the big-hitter, and has the highest profile. Household names (or as near as) always come in got flak whenever they do anything, and GW is no exception.

RoperPG wrote:
With a heavy side of entitlement.

No one, or very few people at least on this board, is saying GW owes them. They're quite plainly criticising business decisions that have turned them off the product.

Personally, I now play several other games. GW is the only one I've played because I have lost at the army selection stage, because the army I chose became the companies red headed step child. I don't feel they owe me a balanced ruleset for the army because I spent money on it, I simply leave my criticism and go play other games.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Household names (or as near as) always come in got flak whenever they do anything, and GW is no exception.

Especially when they deserve it.

Aside from the other things already mentioned here GW just can't make good games anymore. Their models tend to be decent (although the competition has improved to the extent that they can no longer be considered the best on the market) but their rules, and the philosophy behind those rules, are just appalling and that is something that GW's management is entirely responsible for.

At this stage if you want a genuinely good wargame then you need to look elsewhere.

Because they took something I loved and couldn't conceive of leaving, and made it into such a stinking mess of bloated-ruled rock/paper/scissors I eventually did.

Over the years I have seen games workshop go from a company that sold 8 games wittled down to a few. Back in the day they would give detailed guides on making your own scenery, conversions and well the more practical parts of the hobby.

If you wanted a new army you could phone their mailnorder team (no internet) they would put an army together to an agreed budget along with a discount or freebies.

I understand that business is very different and that things won't be around for ever yet how they treated all the fantasy players with AoS was the final nail for me. As the dragonsvsay....I'm out.

Honestly its about the business decisions made over the last 8 years or so that did it for most people (Culminating in the end of WHFB).

For me it started back in 2007 when they dropped their bits service. But a lot of things like the ever increasing price for less and less product that really put me off GW.

That being said they have made quite a few changes in the last few months and, despite my beefs with the game, I like what they are doing with AoS.

Honestly it's what 15 years of spitting on the playerbase and treating them as clueless rubes. But there is hope I hated GW since about 2002 and I bought more in the past couple of weeks then I have spent on other games in months and I God forbid actually enjoyed age of Sigmar and I'm looking forward to building up a small army for 40k if I can ever decide which army I want to actually try.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

What army do you play? How much have you spent on it? How much time have you spent on it? How many cuts, paint spilt, fingers glued have you got so far? Please answer this before I go on. Also what else are you passionate about? What other games have you played? Do you like Star Wars? Do you like the prequels? How about Star Trek. Do you like what JJ Abrhams did with Star Trek? Answer this and I may be able to answer your questions.

OP- This topic is like trying to put out a fire by adding gas.

Flame bait.

Just accept that haters and fanboys exist. The internet will never agree on anything.

 Byte wrote:
OP- This topic is like trying to put out a fire by adding gas.

Flame bait.

Just accept that haters and fanboys exist. The internet will never agree on anything.

Yeah the reason that's flame bait is because it's stupid.

The hate that many fanbases have usually just come down to disagreements on how an IP should be handled. While there's certainly aspects of that with GW, GW have done their fair share of downright bad things to earn the hatred of their customers, like their aggressive copyright claims, not improving balance from one edition to the next, acting as if their customers are just walking wallets in statements made in court, killing much loved games with little to no warning, treating obvious mistakes in their rules as if they don't exist.

There are also several reasons GW fans tend to stick around to talk about why they dislike GW, a couple that come to mind immediately....

- Ex-GW fans often drop GW and then move on to other wargames, so they are still within the general wargaming community to complain about GW for ages rather than complaining for a short while then disappearing. Take Dakka, there's heaps of people who are no longer 40k players but they still hang around to discuss things, because they are still *wargamers*.

- 40k and WHFB are the sorts of things you put a huge investment of time and money into, so the sense of investment is often high. I don't necessarily think it's a sense of entitlement so much as investment. It means you don't like the game, play for a while, decide you don't like it and flip a switch to leave. The process of quitting is often slow and drawn out, the things you liked in the beginning slowly get outweighed by the things you don't like, you might stop buying, but keep gaming; or maybe you stop gaming but keep painting; maybe you stop with the miniatures but are still interested in the background and the video games.

- Many of the things GW customers hate about GW do affect customers directly, but maybe aren't apparent right from the outset. Things like poor balance, it could take months or years for you to discover the reason you keep losing is that you picked an army GW decided were going to be crap this edition. Then it may take even longer for you to realise the next edition doesn't fix any of the problems but just introduces even more ambiguous poorly written rules and new imbalances.

- Because of the last point, many of the issues with GW aren't immediately apparent to new players, ex-GW fans, either rightly or wrongly, often feel like they need to weigh in on discussions to offer a counterbalance to the fanboys so that newer players know that it's not all rosy before investing 100's of dollars and 100's of hours in to 40k.

In a niche like wargaming, one of the stupidest things you can do is burn your existing customers, not only do you lose those customers, it can greatly affect your prospects of getting new customers to replace them.

You are in your honeymoon phase. my advice? enjoy it while it lasts. come back in ~20 years and share some of your wisdom. Maybe then you will understand the general consensus of the community in regards to GW.

Also, MtG is that same thing as TT wargaming, its a hobby. So comparing the two is rather inane.

A lot of it too is many ex-GW fans feel like they didn't want to become ex-GW fans, but were essentially forced out or kicked to the curb by the company, so are more than a little resentful. You don't usually see ex-Warmachine or ex-Infinity players speaking so badly about the company (well maybe now with Warmachine v3 starting off a bit rocky), they just acknowledge it's not the game for them anymore.

GW games though are a different thing. Not only because they typically require more of an investment of time and money, but because GW alone has been the only company to essentially actively gak on their own games; see including Apoc/Escalation/Flyers in base 40k seemingly as a reaction to the players not including it themselves, the constant codex creep while some codexes languish, the constant release of unnecessary Space Marine supplements and models while some factions don't have common choices in plastic, removing the Bitz service to push you to buying multiple boxes just to get an extra heavy or special weapon, the constant price hikes for no reason while their competitors keep prices lower and rarely if ever raise them, the constant growing of the game size while still using rules that are 18 years old at this point and were designed for something much closer to a company-level game, the list goes on. GW has for many years actively worked to treat the players as dumbasses who don't realize they are being taken advantage of.

It's only recently that GW has started to do things better, and there are still major issues (namely the age of 40k rules, the constant push for Space Marines over everything else despite that going against "forge the narrative", the lack of having across the board updates to bring everything in line, and most notably the still-increasing prices), but for many it's never going to be enough because the damage has already been done.