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For years I've seen here and on other forums people complaining about GW - never seen it achieve anything?

I know other systems do listen and change (if you look on the official FoW forums there is a whole sub forum dedicated to reviewing Naval gunfire currently)

But other than some catharsis for the poster, has anything ever been achieved?

Probably not. GW simply refuses to listen.

Doesn't mean criticizing someone for doing something stupid isn't important, at the very least it makes others aware of the anti consumer gak they are pulling.

The only area that gets some kind of feedback may be FAQs@games-workshop.com, or whatever the address is.
But, they're selective, and it never your question that you asked.

Well, I guess not.
However, in the 7th edition they fixed some issues prevalent in the 6th.
So it appears that they read forums or get information elsewhere.
However, customer emails or letters will have small to none impact.

Maybe not, but still ex-customers SHOULD let the company know why they aren't happy and what would make them happy. The fact GW is too stupid and arrogant to listen doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to voice your displeasure.

No, but complaining has become a disease on Dakka.

It's many symptoms are self evident in Dakka Discussions which has seeming ceased to be a place of gamers getting together and chewing the fat to one where every (other?) thread is moaning about much the same thing, not all of it valid, accurate or current, just an incoherent mess.

GW has faults (don't we all) but the gnashing of teeth and wailing has ceased having any meaningful message and simply become something that would be more easily ignored if you were one the receiving end.

That's not to say complaining is of no use. A concise clear message delivered by many customers at once would be heard but there would have to be allot* to make a good business case.

*not the born again nugamers that feel they have to declare how they dropped GW to discover an abundence of other games systems (they will tell you this in the fist few sentences). There are infinitely more people (and their money) to entice that have never played games without braving a gak storm of pettyness to entice a bunch of existing players who have a variety of differing wants and desires.

It's the noise to signal ratio cliche really.

The complaints are not a "disease", it's the pro-GW crowd that generally ignore anything and everything, cite anecdotal evidence at best, and generally turn to name-calling and "Just quit whining" type of retorts.

Complaints have never done anything, but it's A) Good to vent, B) Good to discuss with like-minded people and C) There's always a hope, however slim, that GW will finally get a clue and realize that it's not just a handful of trolls, they have lost profit and revenue and there are very valid reasons why, and they could get a lot of former customers back if they turned things around.

Depends on your definition of change.

There are people that looking at the complaints have either never played a GW game or left for other games that have happier players.

People leaving GW games is change, and not a good one for GW.

If you mean 'does GW ever change anything because of complaints' then no - and most likely never will under the current management.

The Auld Grump

No, and neither does praise. GWS freely admits to not caring what customers think at all; they do no market research and are quite proud of that.

Their vision of the rules does not align with what people complaining want. They say that they're a beer and pretzels type of game that you can have a relaxed game with your mate type of game. We want Privateer Press tightly written rules with GW 40k models. Their "deal with it" stance comes from how they see their game.

They are in it just solely to make models after all (/humor)

As far as non rule items, ie. prices, dealings with brick and mortars, international policy....they're in their own little world and to date no amount of screaming from those who care to do so have made any bit of difference.

I'd say the one cry they listened to after months/years was Finecast.

 MightyGodzilla wrote:
Their vision of the rules does not align with what people complaining want. They say that they're a beer and pretzels type of game that you can have a relaxed game with your mate type of game. We want Privateer Press tightly written rules with GW 40k models. Their "deal with it" stance comes from how they see their game.

They are in it just solely to make models after all (/humor)

As far as non rule items, ie. prices, dealings with brick and mortars, international policy....they're in their own little world and to date no amount of screaming from those who care to do so have made any bit of difference.

I'd say the one cry they listened to after months/years was Finecast.

If they actually made a beer&pretzels game, they might have an excuse. Instead they have a cumbersome game with very expensive figures that takes hours to play and generally requires a discussion with your mate to decide what type of game you want to have. That they call it a beer & pretzels game does not make it so. Technically, Warmachine is more beer & pretzels because I can go to the shop, ask if anyone wants a game, set up and play without having to use diplomacy to discuss terms, and a typical Warmachine game wraps up faster than 40k so I can play more than one.

 notprop wrote:
No, but complaining has become a disease on Dakka.

It's many symptoms are self evident in Dakka Discussions which has seeming ceased to be a place of gamers getting together and chewing the fat to one where every (other?) thread is moaning about much the same thing, not all of it valid, accurate or current, just an incoherent mess.

GW has faults (don't we all) but the gnashing of teeth and wailing has ceased having any meaningful message and simply become something that would be more easily ignored if you were one the receiving end.

Is any of this true though, really?

I mean, the painting and modelling section is still all about painting and modelling. GW's politics aren't found there, and its still a place for hobbyists to go and chew the fat.

The tactics section is still about tactics, and GW's politics aren't particularly found in any significant number there either. Still a place for the gamers to chew the fat on lists, unit use, and general tactics. Same goes for army lists.

Then we have YMDC, which is a silly place. The background section is still all about the background. Battle reports still contain battle reports.

So that leaves us with the General Discussion, which is really the only sub forum 40k specific that has a prevalence of GW criticism. Funny enough, while its certainly a recurring theme, I don't think its half as bad as some people make it out to be. There's still plenty of discussion about everything else about 40k that doesn't specifically fall into one of the other forums.

Dakka discussions has posts about GW at large, but can you really be surprised? They're the largest miniatures company, making the games for the two big games this forum has discussions about. That being said, most of the topics in Dakka Discussion are not about GW. They're often some of the larger threads, but nowhere near being some kind of majority or disease as you so eloquently put it.

No, I think a lot of this repeated nonsense about it being a disease, or too much noise to signal, or being a cesspool, or any other colourful description of Dakka is entirely a construct of the poster who may be tired of a select few recurring threads. The forum is still a place to get together and chew the fat. You have the background section for your fluff needs, the tactics section for gaming needs, and the painting/modelling for hobby stuff, not to mention the GD and Dakka Discussion for all the other threads that aren't about GW.

Besides, if you think its so bad, maybe make some threads you'd enjoy participating in. I know there's an only positive 40K/GW thread going on right now that's still entirely on topic.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 MightyGodzilla wrote:
Their vision of the rules does not align with what people complaining want. They say that they're a beer and pretzels type of game that you can have a relaxed game with your mate type of game. We want Privateer Press tightly written rules with GW 40k models. Their "deal with it" stance comes from how they see their game.

They are in it just solely to make models after all (/humor)

As far as non rule items, ie. prices, dealings with brick and mortars, international policy....they're in their own little world and to date no amount of screaming from those who care to do so have made any bit of difference.

I'd say the one cry they listened to after months/years was Finecast.

If they actually made a beer&pretzels game, they might have an excuse. Instead they have a cumbersome game with very expensive figures that takes hours to play and generally requires a discussion with your mate to decide what type of game you want to have. That they call it a beer & pretzels game does not make it so. Technically, Warmachine is more beer & pretzels because I can go to the shop, ask if anyone wants a game, set up and play without having to use diplomacy to discuss terms, and a typical Warmachine game wraps up faster than 40k so I can play more than one.

Do you see? Their vision of what their game is does not align with what we see it as. SSOOOOOO RIGHT!!!! =p

The problem is no matter what GW changes someone will complain.

If you think CC is to powerful and they nerf it then a group will complain CC is nerfed.

If ANYTHING changes in a codex people will get upset. Ie. If an army is too powerful people will complain, then if the next edition the codex is balanced people will complain their army got nerfed.

Meanwhile people will complain they need to buy a new codex because of the new edition.

If they release new models/armies too slow people complain. If they speed up releases people complain they are coming to fast.

It's a no win situation so why bother. Nerd rage has no bounds and some nerd will always rage about this game. This game in particular seems to draw haters. Yet people still spend massive amounts of money on it. As long as GW makes money doing things their way they aren't going to change. It would drive anyone insane to try to make this crowd happy. I think GW realized that a long time ago, said feth it, and they just do what they want.

Ultimately it's a game of little toy soldiers and people just take it way too seriously.

We wrote:
The problem is no matter what GW changes someone will complain.

Ah, this tired gem.

Yes, because someone is going to complain, best to ignore everything and steer the course of higher costs, less content, and surprise releases.

Truly there is nothing GW could do without pleasing most of their consumers. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely everything and anything they could do would be met with the mewling and howling of millions of unwashed nerds from their parents' basements.

Its hopeless for GW. While other companies manage to satisfy their customers, GW simply can't even try because GW customers can never be pleased.

I would say it achieves a few things:

It is like the "Infinite Monkey Theorem" where a few ideas for the game are proposed and are game gold.
Someone may just hear it and file it away for use later... Kirby does not write the rules so someone may do the right thing.

Great ideas for house rules or just with friends so it works out there too.

Plain old griping without specifics and solutions would definitely not "ever achieve anything".

The complaints show up a fair bit on a google search so curious potential investors could get scared away as well as people thinking of picking up the game.
This is the only "stick" I can think of giving incentive for GW to get what we want.

This being "hopeless" and giving GW license to not even try is pure silliness, all they have to try to do is please a majority: ALL is an impossibility only.

There is ALWAYS room for improvement for any group or system, to think all is well and no need for change is where corporate doom lies.

GW had it right once and can do so again, it is just a matter of focusing on customers rather than investors.

 Blacksails wrote:

We wrote:
The problem is no matter what GW changes someone will complain.

Ah, this tired gem.

Yes, because someone is going to complain, best to ignore everything and steer the course of higher costs, less content, and surprise releases.

Truly there is nothing GW could do without pleasing most of their consumers. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely everything and anything they could do would be met with the mewling and howling of millions of unwashed nerds from their parents' basements.

Its hopeless for GW. While other companies manage to satisfy their customers, GW simply can't even try because GW customers can never be pleased.

As long as they are making millions why should they care?

Look, I work in IT doing consulting. People complain about my pricing all the time. They always want more service for less cost. The people who howl the loudest are usually the ones who can't pay anyway. The guy who makes me work the hardest is the one who, every, single time, is the one who takes the longest to pay (if he ever does). I have to learn to separate the legitimate complaint from the bogus ones.

Same for GW. There is so much static on the internet it is hard to tell who has legitimate complaints and who is just a hater. The people who complain the loudest are the ones who will never buy the product no matter what. So who cares what they say.

GW is making millions. What they are doing is working. It is workign so much better than their competitors they have no reason to change. The proof is that none of the competing miniature companies is even close to their revenues.

It's not that I think GW is infallible. Seriously, I think GW should change a lot of things but they will see no incentive to do so until people stop buying their products. The only way to get their attention is to stop buying their stuff. If you have then great, have fun playing your game. But obviously some people still enjoy GW stuff or else they wouldn't be raking in the profits. (and yes when you are making millions of pounds of profit on toy soldiers, even if that is down from previous years, is raking in profit.)

We wrote:

GW is making millions. What they are doing is working. It is workign so much better than their competitors they have no reason to change. The proof is that none of the competing miniature companies is even close to their revenues.

They've lost 11% of their sales and 50% of their profits in a single year... In a growing market. Please tell me again how they are such amazing geniuses?

The reason why they are making so much more than their competition is that they've had a 20 year head start on said competition. The fact that their competition is growing and they are shrinking is proof that they have no clue of what they are doing.

We wrote:


As long as they are making millions why should they care?

Because they're making less?

This is only true until they stop making millions. In which case it'll be too late to change anything.

I can assure you that their current practices are not doing two important things; the first is keeping existing players interested and buying, and the second is getting new players into the game and buying.

Between being the highest cost to enter game on the market, the largest and most complicated rules (not in a good way), price hikes for veteran players, and a release schedule no one can plan around or knows about until it happens, I am more than absolutely certain their future is not filled with rainbows and pots of gold.

Which, funny enough, are all things they can address and change without the player base complaining. Funny how that works.

Complaining certainly wont help

I think the only thing to do is just to wait the situation out, god knows how long that would last.

I think its common belief that GW will change once their revenue dries up, which it already has. Which they haven't for some reason, it really makes me wonder what's going on in GW hq.

Well, they fixed complained about issues from 6th to 7th, and anyone remember Deamons in 7th edition fantasy? They listened pretty well on that. I just wonder why people wine so much about GW. Their a business, they are going to do business related things even if it pisses off the customers.

It makes me feel better after all the time and money I waste
(well now just time)

We wrote:
The problem is no matter what GW changes someone will complain.

If you think CC is to powerful and they nerf it then a group will complain CC is nerfed.

If ANYTHING changes in a codex people will get upset. Ie. If an army is too powerful people will complain, then if the next edition the codex is balanced people will complain their army got nerfed.

Meanwhile people will complain they need to buy a new codex because of the new edition.

If they release new models/armies too slow people complain. If they speed up releases people complain they are coming to fast.

It's a no win situation so why bother. Nerd rage has no bounds and some nerd will always rage about this game. This game in particular seems to draw haters. Yet people still spend massive amounts of money on it. As long as GW makes money doing things their way they aren't going to change. It would drive anyone insane to try to make this crowd happy. I think GW realized that a long time ago, said feth it, and they just do what they want.

Ultimately it's a game of little toy soldiers and people just take it way too seriously.

I think it's more because they:

* Nerf/buff things deliberately to make a unit that was good bad and bad good to get people to buy more
* Still insist on releasing one thing a month so entire factions go months/years without updates

There are complaints because they aren't doing it CORRECTLY.

The proper way to do updates is to A) Do them at a reasonable pace, and B) Release something new for everybody, not divide it up into months with some armies getting more than others because reasons.

 Brennonjw wrote:
Well, they fixed complained about issues from 6th to 7th

No, they actually didn't. All of the major complaints that people had in 6th edition still exist in 7th (allies, multiple FoCs, Flyers, Fortifications, random everything, etc), and they added a whole new bunch or moronic decisions of top of them (Unbound, LoW, dataslates, etc).

 Brennonjw wrote:

, and anyone remember Deamons in 7th edition fantasy? They listened pretty well on that.

They listened so well on that one that they managed to completely kill fantasy in the process...

 Brennonjw wrote:

I just wonder why people wine so much about GW. Their a business, they are going to do business related things even if it pisses off the customers.

This doesn't make any sense. A business is going to do business related things? Really?

I'll just pre-emptively quote Manchu in anticipation of this descending into yet another "Complaining about people complaining" thread. (My emphasis on the relevant part).

Manchu wrote:Well I guess I will break the conspiracy of silence and unmask the evil moderator plan for oppressing people who criticize GW or people who defend GW or whatever the latest complaint is.

The truth is we don't see much point in threads started to complain about complaining.

Start a thread about something you think GW did well, fine.

Start a thread about something you think GW did poorly, fine.

Start a thread about how it is wrong that people disagree with you about GW or a thread that boils down to a tone argument* against people who disagree with you ... now you're just baiting a pointless meta-argument. And that's what we have here.

If you have any questions or complaints about moderation feel free to start a thread about it in the Nuts & Bolts sub-forum. Thanks.

* A tone argument is where you criticize how someone says something rather than what they say.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/618359.page#7267165

There is a demonstrable difference in behaviour from GW, they don't always, in fact seldom, get it exactly right, but things do change.

Lambasted for one click bundles - deals start to appear with inbuilt in discounts.

People are unhappy about slow releases - release rate increases

Many, many complaints about balance and mechanical issues in 6th - 7th addresses a good percentage.

Prices are too high - early signs that we may be seeing an adjustment to offer better value if not lower prices (Blight Kings 5 to a box, soft cover End Times books should be cheaper)

People hate the secretive release method - leaks are now so regular and predictable it is laughable and What's New Today is showing stuff in advance, if only often by a day or two.

There is plenty more that they need to address and adjust, but if these are actions in response to what has been the most common and vocal criticisms I see, and GW have no social media presence, no forums and do not do market research, where are the getting their feedback from?

Yes, complaining helps, but it needs to be rational, well founded criticism and not ranting because your toy soldiers are 5% less broken than they were in the last Codex and you take your hobby far too seriously.

 notprop wrote:
No, but complaining has become a disease on Dakka.

It's many symptoms are self evident in Dakka Discussions

Go to the GW General board on Warseer and you'll see just the same thing, down to GWombies lamely handwaving the posters there as haters and - despite being more pro-GW with more uptight mods - giving the whole forum the nickname 'Whineseer'.

It's not a local disease, and not a disease at all, but a symptom. To add to Blacksail's response, you see more of it on a general discussion board 'cos when you become more and more estranged by GW's shenanigans, you tend to worry less about the fussy details of listbuilding, game tactics (snort guffaw), number of bits in a kit and precise paint recipes, and draw your viewpoint back to, well, discuss GW in general.

GWombles?

Genius, I'm keeping that, much less provocative than White Knight and much more pleasing!



For those too young or foreign, this is a Womble.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now I've realised you said GWombies, and I'm sad.

It gets more people out there to see that there are other systems beyond GW, and that other companies listen. Whether those customers choose to use the knowledge or not is up to them, but it opens eyes for people. That's about all. It doesn't cause any rethinking at GW though.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
It gets more people out there to see that there are other systems beyond GW, and that other companies listen. Whether those customers choose to use the knowledge or not is up to them, but it opens eyes for people. That's about all. It doesn't cause any rethinking at GW though.

I wanna play that Star Wars X Wing game