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I just saw an article about this on BOLS. I think it is a nice change of pace from the general negativity we often find on the internet.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/07/editorial-in-praise-of-gw.html

Have you actually read that "article"? Its nothing but a sales pitch by an online retailer...

"Things aren't bad, they are actually good, you just have to squint your eyes really hard and turn your head slightly to the left... Now please keep guying GW stuff from us!"

Oh dear, he's filling them so full of sap they're gonna have to blow their noses with pancakes.

Leave Britney GW alone!

I'd hardly call not raising prices something to praise GW for.

Most of the rest of the list are things that have remained constant for a number of years that people readily admit to everywhere anyways. The setting, aesthetics and overall quality of their plastics has always been something GW has done well. Its a shame that some of the new books don't add to the fluff, and in some cases, have actually hurt it.

I also think its a little disingenuous to praise GW for bringing people together to play a wargame. This would have happened anyways with any number of wargames.

Overall, I feel that this article is reaching for any excuse to say something positive about GW. Good customer service is to be expected, though they are pretty easy to deal with.

I'd also hardly call 7th a 'ballsy' move. It was a cash grab, pure and simple, not some extreme risk taking maneuver to shake up the wargaming world.

When a list start by praising a company for not raising prices, its hard to take the rest seriously.

Reecius...you kooky guy!

Wait. This is by Reecius and he gives them credit for not being afraid to take risks.

This is the guy that did the day 1 battle report to show that the revenant titan and escalation in general were bad ideas. Now he is saying that the risk taking is a good thing with them?

I just can't get past that part.

PhantomViper wrote:
Have you actually read that "article"? Its nothing but a sales pitch by an online retailer...

"Things aren't bad, they are actually good, you just have to squint your eyes really hard and turn your head slightly to the left... Now please keep guying GW stuff from us!"

Of course I've read the article! Criticizing the article for being entirely a GW sales pitch is unfounded seeing as Frontline Gaming sells many other products.

The lists reads as "GW didn't shoot itself in the foot this year. Huzzah!". They did do that, though, like having day one DLC and making Stormclaw a very limited edition.

The article's points itself are debatable. Nothing GW has done has demonstrated that they are willing to take risks. 7th Edition is the almost the same as 6th, all their new stuff is just flashy new kits designed to appeal to the desires of new shinies and they have not released a product that isn't a part of the core lines in some time. Are these necessarily bad things? No. They just shouldn't be praised for them.

A modular expansion system...? I... That's something every game system does. GW actually does it worse by making their expansions obscenely priced and poorly balanced.

Amazing Models. Ahem. This is subjective but... Taurox. Just the Taurox. Stormtalon. Stormraven. Any Space Marine flyer not made by FW. Morkanaut.

Setting. Okay, 40k is just as cool as ever. It hasn't changed any so... yay for not fething up?

Industry leading and innovating. Yep, slashing Games Day, ruining their only avenue of advertising, cut the amount of models in boxes in half and making players pay double if they want to play supplements. So much innovating.

Community. One man stores and no Games Day. That is all.

Excellent Customer Service. Okay, granted. Still not praise worthy.


The only thing that's been good from GW lately is the Stormclaw set and the new RoB. I know, I know, I'm just a sucker for Imperial city scape.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
The lists reads as "GW didn't shoot itself in the foot this year. Huzzah!". They did do that, though, like having day one DLC and making Stormclaw a very limited edition.

The article's points itself are debatable. Nothing GW has done has demonstrated that they are willing to take risks. 7th Edition is the almost the same as 6th, all their new stuff is just flashy new kits designed to appeal to the desires of new shinies and they have not released a product that isn't a part of the core lines in some time. Are these necessarily bad things? No. They just shouldn't be praised for them.

A modular expansion system...? I... That's something every game system does. GW actually does it worse by making their expansions obscenely priced and poorly balanced.

Amazing Models. Ahem. This is subjective but... Taurox. Just the Taurox. Stormtalon. Stormraven. Any Space Marine flyer not made by FW. Morkanaut.

Setting. Okay, 40k is just as cool as ever. It hasn't changed any so... yay for not fething up?

Industry leading and innovating. Yep, slashing Games Day, ruining their only avenue of advertising, cut the amount of models in boxes in half and making players pay double if they want to play supplements. So much innovating.

Community. One man stores and no Games Day. That is all.

Excellent Customer Service. Okay, granted. Still not praise worthy.


The only thing that's been good from GW lately is the Stormclaw set and the new RoB. I know, I know, I'm just a sucker for Imperial city scape.

I don't think the point of the article was to say how great GW is. The point is asking people to at least try to find something positive instead of being negative immediately.

Wow, so instead of putting money in improving their rules, GW now started to actually pay people to write fake articles.

Just wow.

I guess if you view not shooting yourself in the foot as positive then yes GW has done some positive things (Which they still have, btw). They just haven't done much praise worthy as of late is what I am saying. And what good they have done has been tempered by their stupid pricing/release policies.

 Random Dude wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
The lists reads as "GW didn't shoot itself in the foot this year. Huzzah!". They did do that, though, like having day one DLC and making Stormclaw a very limited edition.

The article's points itself are debatable. Nothing GW has done has demonstrated that they are willing to take risks. 7th Edition is the almost the same as 6th, all their new stuff is just flashy new kits designed to appeal to the desires of new shinies and they have not released a product that isn't a part of the core lines in some time. Are these necessarily bad things? No. They just shouldn't be praised for them.

A modular expansion system...? I... That's something every game system does. GW actually does it worse by making their expansions obscenely priced and poorly balanced.

Amazing Models. Ahem. This is subjective but... Taurox. Just the Taurox. Stormtalon. Stormraven. Any Space Marine flyer not made by FW. Morkanaut.

Setting. Okay, 40k is just as cool as ever. It hasn't changed any so... yay for not fething up?

Industry leading and innovating. Yep, slashing Games Day, ruining their only avenue of advertising, cut the amount of models in boxes in half and making players pay double if they want to play supplements. So much innovating.

Community. One man stores and no Games Day. That is all.

Excellent Customer Service. Okay, granted. Still not praise worthy.


The only thing that's been good from GW lately is the Stormclaw set and the new RoB. I know, I know, I'm just a sucker for Imperial city scape.

I don't think the point of the article was to say how great GW is. The point is asking people to at least try to find something positive instead of being negative immediately.

As a consumer, that's not my job. It's the company's job to make me unreservedly and immediately excited about their product.

Models did NOT go up in price this year.

Yeah, they just release new models at horribly excessive prices instead of yearly raising of prices, hooray?

They're not afraid to take risks.

Wha? If anything, 7th edition is an example of GW completely unwillingness to take risks. It's basically 6th edition regeared to encourage you to buy more little toy soldiers, how is that risk taking??

A modular expansion system.

Wha? The game has always been open to modular expansion... like basically every other table top wargame on the market. Table top wargames by their very nature are open to modular expansion.

Amazing models.

Certainly debatable, but definitely one of the things that keeps people coming back to 40k in spite of all the other crap

Setting.

Definitely something people are usually praising. Though GW's fluff writing ability often leaves something to be desired, over the years they've expanded 40k to a very expansive and appealing universe to play in.

Industry leading and innovating.

Industry leading in the sense they have a dwindling monopoly from years gone past. Innovating? Are you kidding me? They haven't innovated for years. At this point the main positive to GW is that, being widespread, they are often the doorway through which new gamers get in to the wider wargaming universe.

Community.

I'm not sure the GW community is something to be proud of. It's a deeply fractured community with a lot of dissatisfied customers and customers who have left trying to push people toward other wargames and away from GW. You used to be able to say GW had an expansive community, though that really depends on your location these days, the GW community around my area used to be vibrant and is now dwindling.

Excellent Customer Service.

Indeed, an area where people often praise GW. Though it's unfortunate that many people experience GW's great customer service because of the simultaneously crappy QA on failcast. In all the years I've been collecting GW games, the only experiences I have had were back when I ordered something from the UK to ship to Australia and the order got lost and it was replaced with extra freebies thrown in (woo!) all the other times it's just been because I've had poorly cast miniatures (not so woo).

So we are left with positives being good models, good setting and good customer service... this is nothing new and GW often get praised for those things.

They're not afraid to take risks. GW followed their instincts and gave us a bold new edition that offered their players the power to control their own game as well as bring ALL of their models into play: Super Heavies, Forge World, etc. That is pretty ballsy, and I respect the moxy that that decision took.

This made me giggle.

Wow, the hate is strong in here.

 ashikenshin wrote:
Wow, the hate is strong in here.

Pointing out facts isn't hate.

 ashikenshin wrote:
Wow, the hate is strong in here.

And its well earned.

 ashikenshin wrote:
Wow, the hate is strong in here.

I simply put the "positive" points in to a "realistic" light, it's not really "hating" to point out reality.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 ashikenshin wrote:
Wow, the hate is strong in here.

I simply put the "positive" points in to a "realistic" light, it's not really "hating" to point out reality.

Whether or not GW is taking risks is subjective. Some people think they are taking risks, some don't. How can you say you are pointing out reality?

Because when you're talking about a business venture, "risks" are a quantifiable measurement. What risks has GW taken?

 Psienesis wrote:
Because when you're talking about a business venture, "risks" are a quantifiable measurement. What risks has GW taken?

Coming out with a new edition is a risk. There's a chance everyone will stay with the previous edition, and you lose all the money spent on development.

IMO the very BEST thing GW plc ever did was let all the staff go that wanted to do their job properly, and not just follow the short sighted directives of GW C.E.O. Tom Kirby.

These excellent individuals have got together to set up new companies , that offer great rule sets and minatures, at much better value for money than GW ever could

So the part of the reason the table top minature game hobby is doing so well, is a direct result of the short sighted GW corporate management.

IMO 40k still has the best models and fluff of any game out there. I think those two things alone have kept many people from leaving 40k.

 Random Dude wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Because when you're talking about a business venture, "risks" are a quantifiable measurement. What risks has GW taken?

Coming out with a new edition is a risk. There's a chance everyone will stay with the previous edition, and you lose all the money spent on development.

That might have been the case with 3rd edition which was significantly earlier in 40k's life and also a much more significant change from 2nd edition. These days GW knows that new 40k editions are cash cows and the rules changes are so incremental that they are hardly risks at all. 7th edition just feels like they had a board meeting where the topic was "what changes can be made to 6th edition to encourage people to buy more with absolute minimal effort".

 ashikenshin wrote:
Wow, the hate is strong in here.

"The tories are doing great! They're really helping the poor get back into work!"

"Actually, food bank usage is up astronomically, the number of employed have increased, but a much higher proportion are on zero-hours or part-time contracts, and the number of benefit sanctions being applied are extremely excessive and extremely unfair."

"STOP HATING!"

 Daedleh wrote:

 ashikenshin wrote:
Wow, the hate is strong in here.

"The tories are doing great! They're really helping the poor get back into work!"

"Actually, food bank usage is up astronomically, the number of employed have increased, but a much higher proportion are on zero-hours or part-time contracts, and the number of benefit sanctions being applied are extremely excessive and extremely unfair."

"STOP HATING!"

more like:

"There are some good things GW is doing"

"No, GW is stupid and they are losing customers because their game is bad"

"much hate"

your analogy doesn't work with toy soldiers

 ashikenshin wrote:

 Daedleh wrote:

 ashikenshin wrote:
Wow, the hate is strong in here.

"The tories are doing great! They're really helping the poor get back into work!"

"Actually, food bank usage is up astronomically, the number of employed have increased, but a much higher proportion are on zero-hours or part-time contracts, and the number of benefit sanctions being applied are extremely excessive and extremely unfair."

"STOP HATING!"

more like:

"There are some good things GW is doing"

"No, GW is stupid and they are losing customers because their game is bad"

"much hate"

your analogy doesn't work with toy soldiers

Actually it's more like:

"There are some good things GW is doing, here are some of those things"

"err, wait, no, some of those things aren't good in the context of wargaming, aren't true, or are actually things GW is doing badly"

"STOP HATING ON GW!!!"

Apparently my response was I was screaming "STOP HATING ON GW" while I typed "wow, the hate is strong here"

And you guys didn't read the thread.

 ashikenshin wrote:
more like:

"There are some good things GW is doing"

"No, GW is stupid and they are losing customers because their game is bad"

"much hate"

your analogy doesn't work with toy soldiers

Yes it does. The article makes a bunch of generalisations as reasons to be positive about GW. Posters here rebuked them and pointed out that the generalisations are either wrong, or misrepresented. You accuse them of hating.

Hmm was thinking to myself earlier "How would Dakka react to this article" when i was reading it.

This thread is pretty much what I thought what would happen