So I have watched a number of games that would normally not be considered exciting to watch, flourish and grow recently. A prime example is poker. This game is rather slow and not so great to watch , and yet this game has televised competitions, and with that comes a huge mass of players and followers, not to mention money. My point is this, how do we do that with 40k? How to we make 40k more popular and accepted? To revert to the poker example, I have had many people say that a large part of what made it marketable was the fame that came from the television coverage. Just showing the game is not enough, if anyone has watched a T.V. poker game you will notice that in the corners they added the players cards, so that you, the viewer, knows what is happening. This builds an element of suspense and keeps viewers interested. In addition poker is a game that is easy to learn (not exactly a 40k thing), and cheap to play (GW take note), needing only a deck of cards. This makes that game marketable to large numbers of players. Another thing that helped poker was the free online poker, making it easy to play the game from your own living room. Long story short, is there anything that cen be done to help bring table top gaming to the public eye and acceptance, and with that the followers and the fame that go with it.
40k will not become more popular as long as GW owns it. A game with garbage rules like 40k is never going to be popular outside of its niche market, and GW is utterly incapable of making a game with good rules. So what you're left with is the fluff and models, which don't really appeal to anyone who isn't already interested in tabletop wargaming.
ImotekhTheStormlord wrote: Lowering the cost and simplifying the rules are pretty much the only way 40k will reach a audience of the scale you are referring to.
You'd probably have to go to pre-painted models and terrain as well to have any kind of lasting mainstream acceptance. The amount of "work" this hobby takes would be extremely off-putting to many.
ImotekhTheStormlord wrote: Lowering the cost and simplifying the rules are pretty much the only way 40k will reach a audience of the scale you are referring to.
You'd probably have to go to pre-painted models and terrain as well to have any kind of lasting mainstream acceptance. The amount of "work" this hobby takes would be extremely off-putting to many.
That is something I very much agree with, Painting and such can be a bit of a pain and draw away from the game. Producing both painted, and the current kit models would go a long way.
...ignoring the anti-gw trolls, i think the video games helped a lot, particularly dawn of war. I think if we got a new, good, 40k game, that would boost popularity no end.
And a high profile, well made, 40k film would be phenominally helpful. preferably inquisitor as that would have the most potential for an actual storyline rather than 'there is only war!'
You have a very basic misunderstanding of poker and your idea that a miniatures game could ever become as cheap as a deck of cards defies physics. If you want to compare warhammer to a more popular game then it would have to be MtG or video games.
1) Poker has been mainstream for at least two hundred years in the USA, you can see posters for poker tournaments and services in saloons related to poker all through the 1800's.
2) No matter how you do it you can never make a 3D figurine for less than you can make a 2D representation. If GW actually made figurines for the price of a pack of cards they would have to be green army men level of quality. At which point they will loose any customer base they had and will not be able to compete with Hasbro who has the money to crush them like insects.
Now if we want to discuss how GW could improve their popularity and possibly get to video game popularity then some of the ideas mentioned would help greatly.
1) Tighten up the rules so they are more streamlined and error free.
2) Create a cheaper starter level. Just as they have forgeworld they should release the cheapie mono pose plastic marines so new players can have a cheap way to get in.
3) Think about shifting the money making from the books to the figurines. If you look it up you will see that sales of PS2 consoles were not a money maker for sony. Instead they made the money off of game sales and developer packages/rights. GW could think of a similar approach where the basic rules and absolute minimum entry is cheap and the upgrades make up the profit.
4) Advertise more. Honestly the best advertisement GW ever did was the DoW video game series. That thing probably moved more product than any other single decision GW has made. They really should encourage more of this.
5) Effort level is a huge detriment to the "mainstream" popularity of this hobby. This unfortunately is probably not something that can be completely overcome without destroying the hobby. Perhaps if they provide their minimum entry in an optional pre machined painted version (can look pretty good if we are talking SM or orks) this would give people a way to get started and not have grey figures.
The interesting thing is GW has already taken a step in the right direction with their faster release schedule. As long as they don't change armies mid edition and stay with their current edition change time line then this could be a positive change. They just need to get a better at play testing and FAQ publishing.
Warhammer 40K is extremely nerdy. It involves assembling, painting, and moving around small miniatures while consulting a "Codex" for rules and rolling dice. 40K will never, ever be culturally popular. It's not a game with a long history (chess), is not simple (checkers), does not use a common medium (cards), and the setting does not have mass appeal (like Monopoly).
Not to be a jerk, but we Warhammer players need to simply accept that what we do is not "cool" to the vast majority of people. The girl in the bar is never going to be impressed by your 3 Riptides, and your coworkers don't generally care that you run a nasty Wraithwing. At the family reunion, no one is going to ask how you deal with wave serpent spam when they're done asking cousin billy about his new job.
Warhammer 40K is fun. We all love the setting, some of the models, and the feeling of customizing an army and making it ours. We enjoy the thrill of seeing 6's at the right time and groan when there are way too many 1's in that roll. I don't care about the popularity; as long as there's at least one other person willing to set up 2000 points across from me. However, these things do not necessarily have mass appeal.
greyknight12 wrote: Warhammer 40K is extremely nerdy. It involves assembling, painting, and moving around small miniatures while consulting a "Codex" for rules and rolling dice. 40K will never, ever be culturally popular. It's not a game with a long history (chess), is not simple (checkers), does not use a common medium (cards), and the setting does not have mass appeal (like Monopoly).
Not to be a jerk, but we Warhammer players need to simply accept that what we do is not "cool" to the vast majority of people. The girl in the bar is never going to be impressed by your 3 Riptides, and your coworkers don't generally care that you run a nasty Wraithwing. At the family reunion, no one is going to ask how you deal with wave serpent spam when they're done asking cousin billy about his new job.
Warhammer 40K is fun. We all love the setting, some of the models, and the feeling of customizing an army and making it ours. We enjoy the thrill of seeing 6's at the right time and groan when there are way too many 1's in that roll. However, these things do not necessarily have mass appeal. That said, I don't care; as long as there's at least one other person willing to set up 2000 points across from me.
It is the fact that I love the game though that makes me want to see it become more popular. That said, all of what you said is EXTREMELY true.
greyknight12 wrote: Warhammer 40K is extremely nerdy. It involves assembling, painting, and moving around small miniatures while consulting a "Codex" for rules and rolling dice. 40K will never, ever be culturally popular. It's not a game with a long history (chess), is not simple (checkers), does not use a common medium (cards), and the setting does not have mass appeal (like Monopoly).
Not to be a jerk, but we Warhammer players need to simply accept that what we do is not "cool" to the vast majority of people. The girl in the bar is never going to be impressed by your 3 Riptides, and your coworkers don't generally care that you run a nasty Wraithwing. At the family reunion, no one is going to ask how you deal with wave serpent spam when they're done asking cousin billy about his new job.
Warhammer 40K is fun. We all love the setting, some of the models, and the feeling of customizing an army and making it ours. We enjoy the thrill of seeing 6's at the right time and groan when there are way too many 1's in that roll. I don't care about the popularity; as long as there's at least one other person willing to set up 2000 points across from me. However, these things do not necessarily have mass appeal.
it's too complicated. look at well.. Poker as an example. it's a pretty simple game. meanwhile 40k has all sorts of complicated rules etc. you can't sit someone down and teach someone in 5 minutes how to play 40k. you can teach em Poker. (especially if you have a handy dandy "poker hands" cheat sheet printed out
I'm forcing myself to imagine an unlikely future in which I lose my home in a high-stakes night of 40k.
Seriously, why stopping at poker? Why can't 40k be like, say, soccer? That way I'd make a couple million euros a year, and maybe get to marry a supermodel.
I'm sorry, but not to undercut this thread, but why the hell do we want to be 'more popular' if it means us attracting and acting the insufferable professional poker people?
I get the feeling that the poker example was a bit over ambitious.
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curran12 wrote: I'm sorry, but not to undercut this thread, but why the hell do we want to be 'more popular' if it means us attracting and acting the insufferable professional poker people?
Perhaps my wish to expand is due to the fact that in my area I am watching 40k lose players very rapidly.
Perhaps my wish to expand is due to the fact that in my area I am watching 40k lose players very rapidly.
Which begs the question: are the leaving the wargaming hobby altogether after moving away from 40k? Or are they moving on to other, arguably better rulesets and other games?
curran12 wrote: I'm sorry, but not to undercut this thread, but why the hell do we want to be 'more popular' if it means us attracting and acting the insufferable professional poker people?
Aye, just look at what the console did to comptuer games! Most games are so "common donominator" now. I'm probably just jaded, though.
Perhaps my wish to expand is due to the fact that in my area I am watching 40k lose players very rapidly.
Which begs the question: are the leaving the wargaming hobby altogether after moving away from 40k? Or are they moving on to other, arguably better rulesets and other games?
War machine seems to be the place to go. The shop is pushing it, its a new game, though the models are about the same price, you need less of em. That is my under standing.
leotau1991 wrote: War machine seems to be the place to go. The shop is pushing it, its a new game, though the models are about the same price, you need less of em. That is my under standing.
Sounds like the problem isn't mass popularity then, it's people deciding they're done with GW's awful games and finding something better to do. So, again, the answer is that 40k will only become more popular when GW goes bankrupt and someone else buys the IP.
leotau1991 wrote: War machine seems to be the place to go. The shop is pushing it, its a new game, though the models are about the same price, you need less of em. That is my under standing.
Sounds like the problem isn't mass popularity then, it's people deciding they're done with GW's awful games and finding something better to do. So, again, the answer is that 40k will only become more popular when GW goes bankrupt and someone else buys the IP.
Yes I agree with you.
For as long as gw owns 40k it won't get popular. I once was telling a non-wargammer about the hobby, he thought it was cool until I told him the prices. So the prices are also a turn off.
xruslanx wrote: And a high profile, well made, 40k film would be phenominally helpful. preferably inquisitor as that would have the most potential for an actual storyline rather than 'there is only war!'
Kind of like how the Hobbit gave a huge boost to GW's LOTR games and made them a mainstream thing?
Also, 40k is never going to have a good movie. One of the biggest reasons why 40k is a good setting for a game is that it's a blob of generic scifi archetypes mixed together so that no matter what army you make you can find a place for it in the setting. The downside is that 40k has very little to offer as a film, there just aren't any compelling stories or themes to work with and everything is hopelessly generic. All you'd get is another forgettable big-budget action movie with lots of battle scenes to entertain you for a couple hours but not much else. And if that's your goal then why bother with the 40k license? You can make the exact same film without giving GW a share of the profit, and the 40k brand name isn't big enough to bring in a lot of customers that wouldn't already pay to see it.
xruslanx wrote: And a high profile, well made, 40k film would be phenominally helpful. preferably inquisitor as that would have the most potential for an actual storyline rather than 'there is only war!'
Kind of like how the Hobbit gave a huge boost to GW's LOTR games and made them a mainstream thing?
Also, 40k is never going to have a good movie. One of the biggest reasons why 40k is a good setting for a game is that it's a blob of generic scifi archetypes mixed together so that no matter what army you make you can find a place for it in the setting. The downside is that 40k has very little to offer as a film, there just aren't any compelling stories or themes to work with and everything is hopelessly generic. All you'd get is another forgettable big-budget action movie with lots of battle scenes to entertain you for a couple hours but not much else. And if that's your goal then why bother with the 40k license? You can make the exact same film without giving GW a share of the profit, and the 40k brand name isn't big enough to bring in a lot of customers that wouldn't already pay to see it.
Well the original story line of Pilanius would have been pretty awesome. Overall the most unique things in 40K are also incredibly creepy; aka cherubims, adeptus mechanicum or too involved; dark eldar.
The mass marketed version of 40k is tokens with pictures on them all about the same size as our current bases and terrain drawn on paper. A set of streamlined rules and some dice rolling. Sadly, that is not the game we are playing. This is an art form game, it can't compete with cheap board games, doesn't have the big money feel of vegas-style gambling games, the storyline of a good movie or book, or the interactive nature of a video game.
Now if we want to discuss how GW could improve their popularity and possibly get to video game popularity then some of the ideas mentioned would help greatly.
1) Tighten up the rules so they are more streamlined and error free.
2) Create a cheaper starter level. Just as they have forgeworld they should release the cheapie mono pose plastic marines so new players can have a cheap way to get in.
3) Think about shifting the money making from the books to the figurines. If you look it up you will see that sales of PS2 consoles were not a money maker for sony. Instead they made the money off of game sales and developer packages/rights. GW could think of a similar approach where the basic rules and absolute minimum entry is cheap and the upgrades make up the profit.
4) Advertise more. Honestly the best advertisement GW ever did was the DoW video game series. That thing probably moved more product than any other single decision GW has made. They really should encourage more of this.
5) Effort level is a huge detriment to the "mainstream" popularity of this hobby. This unfortunately is probably not something that can be completely overcome without destroying the hobby. Perhaps if they provide their minimum entry in an optional pre machined painted version (can look pretty good if we are talking SM or orks) this would give people a way to get started and not have grey figures.
1) Not that important. The game lives on it's visuals, not it's ruleset.
2) Somewhat agreed. The starter boxes (DM, etc) are good but limited.
3) The figures are the money makers - they've just jacked up the prices of the rules and supplements to match since they're nearing the point of no return on model prices.
4) I'll upsell your DoW with HeroQuest and Space Crusade (and even Battlemasters) available as affordable boardgames in all kinds of mainstream stores through the MB partnership. MB is now part of the Hasbro empire, so that won't be happening again... LotR worked well initially, but they killed the Hobbit stillborn with crazy-land prices.
5) Agreed, but it'll never happen (unless they get bought out by Hasbro).
But wargaming or GW will never come close to touching videogame levels of popularity or market penetration. Compare the price of an XBox 360/PS3 over the last year or two with a couple of games to getting started in 40k/WFB beyond the DV/IoB boxes...
Azazelx wrote: 1) Not that important. The game lives on it's visuals, not it's ruleset.
Among its current audience, yes. But that's because 40k's current audience consists of the small minority of people who love the fluff/models enough to put up with the awful rules. For 40k to get any kind of mass appeal they need to dump the unprofessional garbage and make a good set of rules.
3) The figures are the money makers - they've just jacked up the prices of the rules and supplements to match since they're nearing the point of no return on model prices.
The idea with that is to make the rules free/cheap to drive sales of the models, not to just increase model prices. GW would take a loss on the rules (though not much of one since most people willing to settle for a downloaded pdf of the rules probably just pirate the books anyway) but make up for it by increasing sales of their high-profit models.
But wargaming or GW will never come close to touching videogame levels of popularity or market penetration. Compare the price of an XBox 360/PS3 over the last year or two with a couple of games to getting started in 40k/WFB beyond the DV/IoB boxes...
That's because you're defining "wargaming" as "GW-style wargaming". Other games are much cheaper to play, either because they use fewer models (Warmachine/Hordes, X-Wing, Infinity, etc) or cheaper models (historicals). For any non-GW game the time and effort to build an army are going to be much bigger limiting factors than the price.
Peregrine wrote: 40k will not become more popular as long as GW owns it. A game with garbage rules like 40k is never going to be popular outside of its niche market, and GW is utterly incapable of making a game with good rules. So what you're left with is the fluff and models, which don't really appeal to anyone who isn't already interested in tabletop wargaming.
Obvious troll is obvious. If it's so bad, why do you play it? hell you're even looking to buy people's superheavies. Go to warmahordes or something, jerk.
You might want to review the forum rules before posting again.
If it's so bad, why do you play it?
Because I enjoy the fluff and models enough to have fun with an occasional game despite the terrible rules.
hell you're even looking to buy people's superheavies.
Hint: some people like to build and paint models even if they can't use them in a game. In fact, I hear there are entire hobbies built around models that have no game rules at all.
You might want to review the forum rules before posting again.
If it's so bad, why do you play it?
Because I enjoy the fluff and models enough to have fun with an occasional game despite the terrible rules.
hell you're even looking to buy people's superheavies.
Hint: some people like to build and paint models even if they can't use them in a game. In fact, I hear there are entire hobbies built around models that have no game rules at all.
Sadly that last bit.. about painting models and having no game at all.. seems to be the niche GW is filling with 40k.. Like painting models? Play this game, we kinda have some rules you can play with and nice models to paint.
xruslanx wrote: And a high profile, well made, 40k film would be phenominally helpful. preferably inquisitor as that would have the most potential for an actual storyline rather than 'there is only war!'
Kind of like how the Hobbit gave a huge boost to GW's LOTR games and made them a mainstream thing?
Also, 40k is never going to have a good movie. One of the biggest reasons why 40k is a good setting for a game is that it's a blob of generic scifi archetypes mixed together so that no matter what army you make you can find a place for it in the setting. The downside is that 40k has very little to offer as a film, there just aren't any compelling stories or themes to work with and everything is hopelessly generic. All you'd get is another forgettable big-budget action movie with lots of battle scenes to entertain you for a couple hours but not much else. And if that's your goal then why bother with the 40k license? You can make the exact same film without giving GW a share of the profit, and the 40k brand name isn't big enough to bring in a lot of customers that wouldn't already pay to see it.
Well the original story line of Pilanius would have been pretty awesome. Overall the most unique things in 40K are also incredibly creepy; aka cherubims, adeptus mechanicum or too involved; dark eldar.
Pilanius? Really?
What story is there? He was just an ordinary soldier who happened to have the big, brass ovaries to tell a giant in powered armour "You shall not pass!", then got shot for it. Not exactly Film of the Year material.
W40k should be as big as X-Men, Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. 25 years ago they were all of them nerdy things. W40h has stayed the same while the rest are really popular. I am still stunned whenever I meet someone and he (even more if it´s a she) knows who Magneto, Sauron or Darth Vader are. Time changes, the new generation is full of nerds.
So what is holding w40k down?
1) The lack of a properly playtested rule set. The fact that many things do not work as they are written. The absurd complexity of the basic rules, that involves owning many books.
2) The total lack of balance. Four flavors:
2.1: Attention Balance. It is not fun if you MUST be a Space Marine or become a second class player. I know lots of people that quit this game because of that.
2.2: Internal Balance: useless units together with overpowered ones. Also notice the lack of effort put into fixing the balance once it is clear it is broken. Vendettas, Pyrovores, Mandrakes, Flayed Ones, Heldrakes are broken, everybody knows it yet GW does nothing.
2.3: External Balance: a well known problem. Codex Creep is not fun. Seeing the Sisters of Battle not getting it because nobody in the studio cares is even worse.
2.4: Background Balance. This is getting worse and worse. There was a time when Codexes were about the faction in the title. Know most of them includes lots of stuff about how awesome Space Marines are.
3) A company trying to protect the Intellectual Property (the setting) that makes this game big. GW does nothing of the sort. They do significant changes in the setting without caring at all and waste time and money in ridiculous legal battles that fill many players with shame.
4) Stop trying to make this a game for 12 old boys. It is not working. It is too dark, and every change in this regard makes more people quit the game.
5) Price. If you want something to be popular, it must be cheap. Some starter armies are needed. Free stuff, special offers...
It'd probably help if some armies didn't get the shaft come their time of codex update a well.
Nothing is worse then seeing your codex end up horribly broken in so many bad ways and finding that your previous slightly effective army is now either far worse, or you gotta swap things just to become effective.
The only way I can think of is a good 40k movie. It would be one of the only ways. People watch the movie, at the start of the movie they have a clip about the minitures. Then people might join the hobby.
As mentioned previously, 40k cannot become significantly popular under the current GW. They are just completely lacking a long term vision - it seems as though GW's every move is focused on 5 years down the road or less:
- open some stores, close some dying stores
- increase prices, reduce sales volume/push out veteran players
- increase new recruit efforts to make up for the loss of veterans (long term customers)
- cut product lines to keep the few stars
Each of these actions is a valid strategy, the problem is GW is implementing them all at once. What you are left with is a company that sells 40k and fantasy at a high price, while leaving customers uncertain what to do once they "finish" their army (you can either by another one, or wait a few years for yours to get an update). GW isn't going to change this anytime soon because it in the short-term this is keeping them alive and profitable.
The best thing for GW and its customers would be for them to have very rough year or 2 that actually threatens the future of the business. This will require senior management to make the tough decisions and look at what their competitors are doing to remain successful. A growing trend I've noticed amongst small independent video games/miniature companies is that they are community driven - the opinions gamers/hobbyists have been noted and are incorporated when possible into the business plan.
I wish it were possible for GW to incorporate more of FW's values (they are the same company, but run quite differently) -GW need to stop being the self proclaimed manufacturer of the best model soldiers (because there are much better sculpts out there) and find a new focus.
40K is too much effort to be mainstream. It's a hobby, not just a game. At the very least, you have to choose, and then assemble your models, which is time consuming.
Poker is easy because the barrier to entry is the price of a pack of cards. And only one player needs to have them.
The reality is, players outside of 40K know nothing of the rules, or the fluff, or the balance. So all of those factors are completely irrelevant. The game has only increased in popularity over the years, and the game has always been the same.
The reality is: models cost a lot of money, the game and figures do not come playable out of the box, and there's extra effort involved even after you buy the models. It's always, and only, ever going to appeal to people who want to play a game that's more involved. And that's not how the mainstream market operates. People want self contained, easily accessible entertainment. 40K will never be that.
leotau1991 wrote: So I have watched a number of games that would normally not be considered exciting to watch, flourish and grow recently. A prime example is poker. This game is rather slow and not so great to watch , and yet this game has televised competitions, and with that comes a huge mass of players and followers, not to mention money. My point is this, how do we do that with 40k? How to we make 40k more popular and accepted? To revert to the poker example, I have had many people say that a large part of what made it marketable was the fame that came from the television coverage. Just showing the game is not enough, if anyone has watched a T.V. poker game you will notice that in the corners they added the players cards, so that you, the viewer, knows what is happening. This builds an element of suspense and keeps viewers interested. In addition poker is a game that is easy to learn (not exactly a 40k thing), and cheap to play (GW take note), needing only a deck of cards. This makes that game marketable to large numbers of players. Another thing that helped poker was the free online poker, making it easy to play the game from your own living room. Long story short, is there anything that cen be done to help bring table top gaming to the public eye and acceptance, and with that the followers and the fame that go with it.
The simple answer is you are comparing a game that has been popular for over 200 years in the US, plays with simple components (chips and one or two decks of cards), has simple and straight forward rules and is played in competition for hundreds of thousands of dollars to a game that hasn't even been around for 30 years, requires tons of parts, has convoluted and difficult to follow rules, requires understanding and knowledge of a large amount of fluff to put it into context and is never going to played in competiton for hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is no comparison. There is no tension. There is nothing hidden in 40k. No way for announcers to say something like this:
Voice 1: Well Richard is just stomping all over Michael's orks in this battle. It is a real slaughter.
Voice 2: This is true, but speaking of stomping, Richard doesn't know that Michael has an ork stompa hidden in reserve just waiting to unleash some orkie goodness on Richard's space marines. So don't count Michael out yet!
Yeah even just reading the example it sounds ludicrous. Imagine it for real. I've been involved in tabletop gaming starting with counters and moving into minis for well on 36 years now and *I* would not watch that coverage for even a minute. I remember when ESPN televised Magic the Gathering tournies hoping to cash in on the popularity of the game and not only was it horribly painful to watch and listen to, they also discovered that even as new a concept as the CCG was at the time, and how popular MtG was at the time as well, it still was no where near popular enough to warrant televising the tournements and thankfully the coverage died a quick death. Imagine accouncers calling plays and actions in a Magic game as if it were a sports contest and then realize that the reality was even worse than it sounds in your head.
Even with the improvements that others in this thread suggest 40k will never be as popular and openly accepted as poker or even remotely as interesting to watch to the general public as the final rounds of a high stakes poker tournement can be.
3) A company trying to protect the Intellectual Property (the setting) that makes this game big. GW does nothing of the sort. They do significant changes in the setting without caring at all and waste time and money in ridiculous legal battles that fill many players with shame.
They can't. The setting is (to be generous) "borrowed" from every other Sci-Fi and Fantasy setting to be published in the last century and a half. GW doesn't actually *own* the rights to half the stuff they publish, they just slap a different coat of paint on it and call it new.
Chaos? All of GW's depictions of Chaos belong to Michael Moorcock. Even the eight-pointed star symbol. All of it. Mutants, magic, monsters, Chaos Gods, "Blood for the Blood God" ("Blood and souls!"), Forces of Order vs Forces of Chaos... all of that. Owned by Michael Moorcock.
Tau? That's anime, probably specifically Robotech, though other anime lines could be said to have equal hold.
Necrons? James Cameron. Those are T800 models.
Eldar? Tolkein High Elves in Space.
The God-Emperor? Estate of Frank Herbert (God-Emperor of Dune?).
Psykers? George Lucas has a real strong claim to Psychics in Space.
Space Marines? Estate of Robert Heinlein holding on line 2.
So once they strip away all of the elements that could get production of a feature film halted with lawsuits, what you're left with is a very, very generic sci-fi setting.
leotau1991 wrote: So I have watched a number of games that would normally not be considered exciting to watch, flourish and grow recently. A prime example is poker. This game is rather slow and not so great to watch , and yet this game has televised competitions, and with that comes a huge mass of players and followers, not to mention money. My point is this, how do we do that with 40k? How to we make 40k more popular and accepted? To revert to the poker example, I have had many people say that a large part of what made it marketable was the fame that came from the television coverage. Just showing the game is not enough, if anyone has watched a T.V. poker game you will notice that in the corners they added the players cards, so that you, the viewer, knows what is happening. This builds an element of suspense and keeps viewers interested. In addition poker is a game that is easy to learn (not exactly a 40k thing), and cheap to play (GW take note), needing only a deck of cards. This makes that game marketable to large numbers of players. Another thing that helped poker was the free online poker, making it easy to play the game from your own living room. Long story short, is there anything that cen be done to help bring table top gaming to the public eye and acceptance, and with that the followers and the fame that go with it.
The simple answer is you are comparing a game that has been popular for over 200 years in the US, plays with simple components (chips and one or two decks of cards), has simple and straight forward rules and is played in competition for hundreds of thousands of dollars to a game that hasn't even been around for 30 years, requires tons of parts, has convoluted and difficult to follow rules, requires understanding and knowledge of a large amount of fluff to put it into context and is never going to played in competiton for hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is no comparison. There is no tension. There is nothing hidden in 40k. No way for announcers to say something like this:
Voice 1: Well Richard is just stomping all over Michael's orks in this battle. It is a real slaughter.
Voice 2: This is true, but speaking of stomping, Richard doesn't know that Michael has an ork stompa hidden in reserve just waiting to unleash some orkie goodness on Richard's space marines. So don't count Michael out yet!
Yeah even just reading the example it sounds ludicrous. Imagine it for real. I've been involved in tabletop gaming starting with counters and moving into minis for well on 36 years now and *I* would not watch that coverage for even a minute. I remember when ESPN televised Magic the Gathering tournies hoping to cash in on the popularity of the game and not only was it horribly painful to watch and listen to, they also discovered that even as new a concept as the CCG was at the time, and how popular MtG was at the time as well, it still was no where near popular enough to warrant televising the tournements and thankfully the coverage died a quick death. Imagine accouncers calling plays and actions in a Magic game as if it were a sports contest and then realize that the reality was even worse than it sounds in your head.
Even with the improvements that others in this thread suggest 40k will never be as popular and openly accepted as poker or even remotely as interesting to watch to the general public as the final rounds of a high stakes poker tournement can be.
Skriker
I do agree on your points here. However the same would be said of any video game, and yet games like starcraft 2 are hugely popular in other countries.
I just think it would be boring. There are few batreps I enjoy watching. For me, WH40k is a social event, where I get together with some buddies, look at some pretty models, and roll some dice while bantering a bit. It's not something i'd be interested in watching because the game simply doenst have enough strategy involved. As it stands, WH40K is mostly a fun, casual game for people with lots of time and money, and I'm fine with this.
leotau1991 wrote: So I have watched a number of games that would normally not be considered exciting to watch, flourish and grow recently. A prime example is poker. This game is rather slow and not so great to watch , and yet this game has televised competitions, and with that comes a huge mass of players and followers, not to mention money. My point is this, how do we do that with 40k? How to we make 40k more popular and accepted? To revert to the poker example, I have had many people say that a large part of what made it marketable was the fame that came from the television coverage. Just showing the game is not enough, if anyone has watched a T.V. poker game you will notice that in the corners they added the players cards, so that you, the viewer, knows what is happening. This builds an element of suspense and keeps viewers interested. In addition poker is a game that is easy to learn (not exactly a 40k thing), and cheap to play (GW take note), needing only a deck of cards. This makes that game marketable to large numbers of players. Another thing that helped poker was the free online poker, making it easy to play the game from your own living room. Long story short, is there anything that cen be done to help bring table top gaming to the public eye and acceptance, and with that the followers and the fame that go with it.
The simple answer is you are comparing a game that has been popular for over 200 years in the US, plays with simple components (chips and one or two decks of cards), has simple and straight forward rules and is played in competition for hundreds of thousands of dollars to a game that hasn't even been around for 30 years, requires tons of parts, has convoluted and difficult to follow rules, requires understanding and knowledge of a large amount of fluff to put it into context and is never going to played in competiton for hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is no comparison. There is no tension. There is nothing hidden in 40k. No way for announcers to say something like this:
Voice 1: Well Richard is just stomping all over Michael's orks in this battle. It is a real slaughter.
Voice 2: This is true, but speaking of stomping, Richard doesn't know that Michael has an ork stompa hidden in reserve just waiting to unleash some orkie goodness on Richard's space marines. So don't count Michael out yet!
Yeah even just reading the example it sounds ludicrous. Imagine it for real. I've been involved in tabletop gaming starting with counters and moving into minis for well on 36 years now and *I* would not watch that coverage for even a minute. I remember when ESPN televised Magic the Gathering tournies hoping to cash in on the popularity of the game and not only was it horribly painful to watch and listen to, they also discovered that even as new a concept as the CCG was at the time, and how popular MtG was at the time as well, it still was no where near popular enough to warrant televising the tournements and thankfully the coverage died a quick death. Imagine accouncers calling plays and actions in a Magic game as if it were a sports contest and then realize that the reality was even worse than it sounds in your head.
Even with the improvements that others in this thread suggest 40k will never be as popular and openly accepted as poker or even remotely as interesting to watch to the general public as the final rounds of a high stakes poker tournement can be.
Skriker
You do know that MtG, SC2, LoL, Dota 2, WMH, Netrunner and several other games have live coverage of games and events with live commentary with sometimes hundreds of thousands of viewers, right?
If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
The fluff is there, the problem is the movie would have to be done "right". The best way they could conceivably do this is from the eyes of a imperial guardsman. People could relate to that. The movie would need to be done with live actors.
CGI in a setting set in the 40th millennium would be inevitable, but should be limited wherever possible. To often directors go way overboard on CGI & mistake "lots of explosions" for a good movie.
If they could capture "grimdark", it could change cinema forever & we would see a revival like never before.
leotau1991 wrote: I do agree on your points here. However the same would be said of any video game, and yet games like starcraft 2 are hugely popular in other countries.
Starcraft 2 is popular among *gamers* in many countries and doesn't require any of the baggage, expense and effort of 40k. Starcraft 2 is also not going to be having televised tournements like Poker either. Unless maybe on the G4 network and then will still not appeal to as broad an audience as a poker tourney would.
Nah. Avatar had mostly-naked giant blue people with bodies based on supermodels. That's a huge draw of crowds (and lots of people went to see Bill Crudup's giant blue wang in Watchmen).
GW and 40K, however, have fled from anything that could really be construed as sexual over the past 20 years, so none of that is going to be in a 40K movie.
"Grimdark" has been done before, it comes and goes in certain genres of independent films, some of the best being Italian independent horror films, but that has not really caught on in any other schools of film.
ImotekhTheStormlord wrote: Lowering the cost and simplifying the rules are pretty much the only way 40k will reach a audience of the scale you are referring to.
And then after enough people buy into 40k, there could be enough money to use the setting on a much grander scale - Movies, Games (not just the DoW line) etc.
But GW is like the Adeptus Mechanicus. It hoards old methods with utmost secrecy, and will treat anything new as utter heresy (especially if it is better than old things).
GW and 40K, however, have fled from anything that could really be construed as sexual over the past 20 years, so none of that is going to be in a 40K movie.
Daemonettes can be considered sexual, and the DE models have half-naked female slaves...
xruslanx wrote: ...ignoring the anti-gw trolls, i think the video games helped a lot, particularly dawn of war. I think if we got a new, good, 40k game, that would boost popularity no end.
And a high profile, well made, 40k film would be phenominally helpful. preferably inquisitor as that would have the most potential for an actual storyline rather than 'there is only war!'
Lovable Renegade Rogue Trader and his interesting crew that you just grew to love, but are about to watch die meets New Alien Threat/New Tyranid Threat/New Necron Threat/Old Ancient Threat while exploring the outer regions of space on a Death World that has been scouted for his potential use as a Imperial Guard recruitment world.
I would also love to see something in the depths of a Hive World/City that's recruiting, at TV series to explore the Underworld of the 40k universe would be amazing....
Just spitballing ideas here, but I think a movie would have to draw away from the epic scale battles so they can test the waters (market) first, then go huge if it's successful...
Maybe tying in aforementioned "New Alien Threat" to a larger scheme, i.e. Rogue Trader escapes with info, epic battle between factions ensues.
What story is there? He was just an ordinary soldier who happened to have the big, brass ovaries to tell a giant in powered armour "You shall not pass!", then got shot for it. Not exactly Film of the Year material.
A movie that follows Pilanius as the rebellion progresses and ends with him and his big secondary sex organs standing in the way of titanic near gods could be a really good movie. The best part about it is if you got a good script writer he could have near free reign until the iconic moment which would make for a very good dramatic scene with the right actor. Out of all the GW material it has the best human element that makes a movie a classic. The rest is so over the top people cannot relate.
I would also love to see something in the depths of a Hive World/City that's recruiting, at TV series to explore the Underworld of the 40k universe would be amazing....
Yes I agree that would be great! I could see it making interest in the hobby but the prices..
A television series would be a more-attainable goal than a Hollywood blockbuster. Mainly because the compromises required to make a Hollywood film would make a 40K film not a 40K film, which would piss off the pre-existing fans.. A true 40K film will only attract people who are already aware of the hobby.
Psienesis wrote: A television series would be a more-attainable goal than a Hollywood blockbuster. Mainly because the compromises required to make a Hollywood film would make a 40K film not a 40K film, which would piss off the pre-existing fans.. A true 40K film will only attract people who are already aware of the hobby.
TV can be done fairly cheaply.
Any resourceful fellows want to put together a kickstarter?
I have no idea how they would do a Hive City tho, would have to find some pretty grungy streets...
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
Psienesis wrote: A television series would be a more-attainable goal than a Hollywood blockbuster. Mainly because the compromises required to make a Hollywood film would make a 40K film not a 40K film, which would piss off the pre-existing fans.. A true 40K film will only attract people who are already aware of the hobby.
TV can be done fairly cheaply.
Any resourceful fellows want to put together a kickstarter?
I have no idea how they would do a Hive City tho, would have to find some pretty grungy streets...
I think the IG and would set a good scene,Same with sm. The orks would be comedy..
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
This, annoyingly, is pretty much the case.
To get anyone to understand wtf is going on in the film, somebody would have to explain the setting. In quite some detail.
And then convince everyone that it's okay to have a character who "fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder", and is still to be considered the "good guy".
We could go with following an IG's struggle to survive, but he'd still be incredibly racist and xenophobic, whose answer to all problems is a detpack, a lasgun and cold steel.
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
What id do is make the movie based on an imperial guardsmen fighting a rebellion on another imperial world and committing untold horrors and crimes etc and at the begining he is all fine with it and things its for the best but starts to question what he is doing etc and the plot can based on that kind of moral bases. Doesnt need to be about marines or anything as in my opinion those movies would fail horribly. Keep it human based and give it depth and story (less fighting) and i would love to watch it. Or even make a big push on to the futility of what the imperium is trying to acheive etc.
I think if its a thoughtful insiting movie not a hack and slash it would be great.
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
What id do is make the movie based on an imperial guardsmen fighting a rebellion on another imperial world and committing untold horrors and crimes etc and at the begining he is all fine with it and things its for the best but starts to question what he is doing etc and the plot can based on that kind of moral bases. Doesnt need to be about marines or anything as in my opinion those movies would fail horribly. Keep it human based and give it depth and story (less fighting) and i would love to watch it. Or even make a big push on to the futility of what the imperium is trying to acheive etc.
I think if its a thoughtful insiting movie not a hack and slash it would be great.
^^
I think orks would be good for da comedy as da orks ar da best!
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
What id do is make the movie based on an imperial guardsmen fighting a rebellion on another imperial world and committing untold horrors and crimes etc and at the begining he is all fine with it and things its for the best but starts to question what he is doing etc and the plot can based on that kind of moral bases. Doesnt need to be about marines or anything as in my opinion those movies would fail horribly. Keep it human based and give it depth and story (less fighting) and i would love to watch it. Or even make a big push on to the futility of what the imperium is trying to acheive etc.
I think if its a thoughtful insiting movie not a hack and slash it would be great.
^^
I think orks would be good for da comedy as da orks ar da best!
Despite being a murderous race of monsters who see amusement in basic brutality and cruel acts.
Again, a 40k movie is simply impossible to properly do since no real relatable protagonist is available. Any movie attempt would end up like the Star Wars Prequels.
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
What id do is make the movie based on an imperial guardsmen fighting a rebellion on another imperial world and committing untold horrors and crimes etc and at the begining he is all fine with it and things its for the best but starts to question what he is doing etc and the plot can based on that kind of moral bases. Doesnt need to be about marines or anything as in my opinion those movies would fail horribly. Keep it human based and give it depth and story (less fighting) and i would love to watch it. Or even make a big push on to the futility of what the imperium is trying to acheive etc.
I think if its a thoughtful insiting movie not a hack and slash it would be great.
^^
I think orks would be good for da comedy as da orks ar da best!
Despite being a murderous race of monsters who see amusement in basic brutality and cruel acts.
Again, a 40k movie is simply impossible to properly do since no real relatable protagonist is available. Any movie attempt would end up like the Star Wars Prequels.
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
This, annoyingly, is pretty much the case.
To get anyone to understand wtf is going on in the film, somebody would have to explain the setting. In quite some detail.
And then convince everyone that it's okay to have a character who "fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder", and is still to be considered the "good guy".
We could go with following an IG's struggle to survive, but he'd still be incredibly racist and xenophobic, whose answer to all problems is a detpack, a lasgun and cold steel.
Start with a TV series, focus on humanity (i.e. overpopulation, viral underworld, cannibalism, hivecities), and have movie tie-ins...
I remember being introduced to WH40k fully through the PS2 game Fire Warrior, you fight Imperial Guard most the game and when you finally see a Space Marine, it's like "holy gak" that thing is huge and scary.
They would want capture this for viewers for the first time, like isolated Tyranid horror (alien movie, ripley), infectious chaos heresy, wise but extremely radical and racist eldar, I think humans have more of a Xenophobia before racism and would team up (have before on many occasions, sometimes without consent) with The Eldar if they could get passed both the phobia and Eldar racism. Necrons are pretty freaking scary as in terminator armegeddons, what you basically have is near-infinite possibilities for sci-fi movies and TV series with this Universe. I've never seen anything like it.... Orks would be saved for a movie (WAAAARGH, and so would the Tau Empire (another possible human ally ignoring the stupid xenophobia) most likely... I think Dark Eldar are probably the only race that is off limits to the public. The whole raping and pillaging by the chaos, can be referenced (they dont have to cover everything) kinda like the Reavers from firefly, and let them focus on the mutilation, mutation, cannibalism and heresy...
But yeah, deffs use a Hive City, starting with humanity and perhaps the underbelly, then branch out from there slowly implementing other races and movies imo...
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
What id do is make the movie based on an imperial guardsmen fighting a rebellion on another imperial world and committing untold horrors and crimes etc and at the begining he is all fine with it and things its for the best but starts to question what he is doing etc and the plot can based on that kind of moral bases. Doesnt need to be about marines or anything as in my opinion those movies would fail horribly. Keep it human based and give it depth and story (less fighting) and i would love to watch it. Or even make a big push on to the futility of what the imperium is trying to acheive etc.
I think if its a thoughtful insiting movie not a hack and slash it would be great.
^^
I think orks would be good for da comedy as da orks ar da best!
Despite being a murderous race of monsters who see amusement in basic brutality and cruel acts.
Again, a 40k movie is simply impossible to properly do since no real relatable protagonist is available. Any movie attempt would end up like the Star Wars Prequels.
At Least let us dream! Even if we know this will never happen!
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
Which is, totally impossible.
A Warhammer 40k movie would be at least 7 hours long, and it's protagonist would be ether be a fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder (general Imperials), or we do the same except it's more elegant and lacking in the fanaticism (Eldar). That or we do daemon worshiping pillagers who rape, slaughter and set fire to everything in site, or we have a film about beings that make people's minds explode by the sheer thought of their existence. Or we do a movie about....etc....wedidn'tstartthefire.mp3.
This, annoyingly, is pretty much the case.
To get anyone to understand wtf is going on in the film, somebody would have to explain the setting. In quite some detail.
And then convince everyone that it's okay to have a character who "fanatically racist, xenophonic, ultra religious zealot bent on purging the unpure by committing genocide and mass murder", and is still to be considered the "good guy".
We could go with following an IG's struggle to survive, but he'd still be incredibly racist and xenophobic, whose answer to all problems is a detpack, a lasgun and cold steel.
Start with a TV series, focus on humanity (i.e. overpopulation, viral underworld, cannibalism, hivecities), and have movie tie-ins...
I remember being introduced to WH40k fully through the PS2 game Fire Warrior, you fight Imperial Guard most the game and when you finally see a Space Marine, it's like "holy gak" that thing is huge and scary.
They would want capture this for viewers for the first time, like isolated Tyranid horror (alien movie, ripley), infectious chaos heresy, wise but extremely radical and racist eldar, I think humans have more of a Xenophobia before racism and would team up (have before on many occasions, sometimes without consent) with The Eldar if they could get passed both the phobia and Eldar racism. Necrons are pretty freaking scary as in terminator armegeddons, what you basically have is near-infinite possibilities for sci-fi movies and TV series with this Universe. I've never seen anything like it.... Orks would be saved for a movie, and so would the Tau Empire most likely... I think Dark Eldar are probably the only race that is off limits to the public. The whole raping and pillaging by the chaos, can be referenced (they dont have to cover everything) kinda like the Reavers from firefly, and let them focus on the mutilation, mutation, cannibalism and heresy...
But yeah, deffs use a Hive City, starting with humanity and perhaps the underbelly, then branch out from there slowly implementing other races and movies imo...
Hmm...
That could work. Inter-human drama in a Hive setting.
Stick in some plot involving the PDF training for invasions/uprising etc.
Have a small heretical uprising be defeated by the PDF in series 1...
Start with a TV series, focus on humanity (i.e. overpopulation, viral underworld, cannibalism, hivecities), and have movie tie-ins...
I remember being introduced to WH40k fully through the PS2 game Fire Warrior, you fight Imperial Guard most the game and when you finally see a Space Marine, it's like "holy gak" that thing is huge and scary.
They would want capture this for viewers for the first time, like isolated Tyranid horror (alien movie, ripley), infectious chaos heresy, wise but extremely radical and racist eldar, I think humans have more of a Xenophobia before racism and would team up (have before on many occasions, sometimes without consent) with The Eldar if they could get passed both the phobia and Eldar racism. Necrons are pretty freaking scary as in terminator armegeddons, what you basically have is near-infinite possibilities for sci-fi movies and TV series with this Universe. I've never seen anything like it.... Orks would be saved for a movie, and so would the Tau Empire most likely... I think Dark Eldar are probably the only race that is off limits to the public. The whole raping and pillaging by the chaos, can be referenced (they dont have to cover everything) kinda like the Reavers from firefly, and let them focus on the mutilation, mutation, cannibalism and heresy...
But yeah, deffs use a Hive City, starting with humanity and perhaps the underbelly, then branch out from there slowly implementing other races and movies imo...
Hmm...
That could work. Inter-human drama in a Hive setting.
Stick in some plot involving the PDF training for invasions/uprising etc.
Have a small heretical uprising be defeated by the PDF in series 1...
Have Series 2 see an eldar pirate raid....
Then expand.
Yeah totally man, personally I would start him (origin) as an upbeat "street rat" who fights to survive in the depths of the hive city underworld, he makes many contacts in that environment, and has fought in many gangs. This is pre-existing history about the protagonist which is revealed over tiem as we learn more about him (and he meets old contacts from the underworld during his service), the first season would start where he is recruited by a secret headhunting agency (lore tie in? not sure...) for the Imperial Guard PDF....
Deschain wrote: No matter what you do, it will be dark, the universe is dark and that's okay...
Just don't make the pilot toooooo dark or it will the guy the way of Firefly...
Mmm. You need some humour in there, else there will be nothing to compare the grimdarkness to.
Yeah, of course, you would drip it in when you focus on the characters, like how The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have done it successfully, as well as Breaking Bad (yes I just quoted 3 of the best shows out atm)
Azazelx wrote: 1) Not that important. The game lives on it's visuals, not it's ruleset.
Among its current audience, yes. But that's because 40k's current audience consists of the small minority of people who love the fluff/models enough to put up with the awful rules. For 40k to get any kind of mass appeal they need to dump the unprofessional garbage and make a good set of rules.
I'm not sure what you define as "mass appeal" here. Pick me the best, tightest, most balanced set of wargaming rules out there. More popular than 40k? Nope? What attracts us to 40k in the first place? The rules or the visuals?
3) The figures are the money makers - they've just jacked up the prices of the rules and supplements to match since they're nearing the point of no return on model prices.
The idea with that is to make the rules free/cheap to drive sales of the models, not to just increase model prices. GW would take a loss on the rules (though not much of one since most people willing to settle for a downloaded pdf of the rules probably just pirate the books anyway) but make up for it by increasing sales of their high-profit models.
I'm sure can very easily get all of the current rules for free in under an hour. Many, many teenagers and people in their 20s possess these same skills - particularly those who would be into stuff like 40k. The ones that don't I'm sure can work a USB drive. Now, while I like to buy the books, I do that because I like books. I'm about to get the Horus Heresy FWbooks which are expensive but also easily ...aquired online. The books and even the BRBs used to be reasonably priced. With diminishing space to jack up model prices, they've done it to books instead. Dropping the book prices would sell more books to the converted, but it wouldn't change the fact that the models are the big profit-makers.
But wargaming or GW will never come close to touching videogame levels of popularity or market penetration. Compare the price of an XBox 360/PS3 over the last year or two with a couple of games to getting started in 40k/WFB beyond the DV/IoB boxes...
That's because you're defining "wargaming" as "GW-style wargaming". Other games are much cheaper to play, either because they use fewer models (Warmachine/Hordes, X-Wing, Infinity, etc) or cheaper models (historicals). For any non-GW game the time and effort to build an army are going to be much bigger limiting factors than the price.
No. I'm not.
I'm including everything from 40k to Crossfire. X-Wing to DBM. Bolt Action to Johnny Reb. Combine them all, then compare them to XBox or PlayStation's market size (let alone them combined, with Nintendo on top and the current handhelds for good measure).
da001 wrote: W40k should be as big as X-Men, Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. 25 years ago they were all of them nerdy things. W40h has stayed the same while the rest are really popular. I am still stunned whenever I meet someone and he (even more if it´s a she) knows who Magneto, Sauron or Darth Vader are. Time changes, the new generation is full of nerds.
So what is holding w40k down?
1) The lack of a properly playtested rule set. The fact that many things do not work as they are written. The absurd complexity of the basic rules, that involves owning many books.
2) The total lack of balance. Four flavors:
2.1: Attention Balance. It is not fun if you MUST be a Space Marine or become a second class player. I know lots of people that quit this game because of that.
2.2: Internal Balance: useless units together with overpowered ones. Also notice the lack of effort put into fixing the balance once it is clear it is broken. Vendettas, Pyrovores, Mandrakes, Flayed Ones, Heldrakes are broken, everybody knows it yet GW does nothing.
2.3: External Balance: a well known problem. Codex Creep is not fun. Seeing the Sisters of Battle not getting it because nobody in the studio cares is even worse.
2.4: Background Balance. This is getting worse and worse. There was a time when Codexes were about the faction in the title. Know most of them includes lots of stuff about how awesome Space Marines are.
3) A company trying to protect the Intellectual Property (the setting) that makes this game big. GW does nothing of the sort. They do significant changes in the setting without caring at all and waste time and money in ridiculous legal battles that fill many players with shame.
4) Stop trying to make this a game for 12 old boys. It is not working. It is too dark, and every change in this regard makes more people quit the game.
5) Price. If you want something to be popular, it must be cheap. Some starter armies are needed. Free stuff, special offers...
Yeah, out of those, I'll agree with 5, but that just deals with relative popularity within the niche of fantasy wargaming. (Which they still lead in, as it happens).
The franchises that you mention above all had a lot of marketing and some rather popular films made of them. But before that, with he exception of Star Wars that started as a film (that was very much right place right time) they were all successful and solid franchises for a long, long time - longer and more successful than GW.
The success of the original Star Wars gave Lucas enough power (money) to control the way his franchise was marketed. Also, 5 more films and a pretty fanatical fanbase that grew up with it. The first trilogy were also (mostly) very good kids' movies.
Long before the films, the LotR books and Tolkien in general were perpetual always-stocked high-sellers in bookshops, along with CS Lewis and Tolstoy, Orwell, etc as some of the books you can always find in print and in any bookshop that's not one of those OOP discount book clearance houses. It's also been the foundation of pretty much the entire fantasy gaming industry (and yes, I'm well aware of Moorcock, et al). Tolkien has always been more than a "nerdy thing", even if not incredibly well-known outside of literature. Then they made some well-received movies....
Marvel Comics. They've been around for a long time. I shouldn't have to give any details or examples here. But Wolverine who has become the touchstone for the X-Men is pretty much the perpetual teenage-boy fantasy. Also, the first film being good helped a LOT, since before the films came out, the X-Men were pretty unknown outside of comic-geek circles who tented to know Bat-Super-Spider-Man, Captain America, Wonder Woman and The Hulk - and not much else.
Games Workshop are a relatively small company that has sold toy soldiers for about 35 years, and have been about 4 distinctly different companies in that time. They don't advertise outside of their own in-house publication, and, aside from video games don't really licence their IP, which they have continued to grip so tightly that they have stayed an influence on wider creative types (I wonder how many people at Blizzard own or owned some Space Marines?) but remained relatively small. Did you know they vetoed multiplayer options from being included in their early licenced RTS-genre games? "The Tabletop game is our multiplayer." An myopic aggressive shark in a niche pond. Quite good at what they do, which is make models, but not so good at bringing that to a wider audience...
Finally, "really popular" is a relative thing. Sure, geek/nerd culture is a much bigger thing nowadays, since it ties in very broadly with video games and superhero movies and twilight books and Star Trek and on and on. Since we seem to have deep wallets and fit that 18-35 male demographic so well, things like Big Bang Theory came out of that, which has helped even more to "mainstream" the idea that geek culture is a thing that exists in a wider sense. But still, it's niche as hell compared to something like sports. The main difference is that "normal" people are somewhat familiar with the idea of people that are heavily into games and superheroes and so forth not all being freaks and weirdos.
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Skriker wrote: I remember when ESPN televised Magic the Gathering tournies hoping to cash in on the popularity of the game and not only was it horribly painful to watch and listen to, they also discovered that even as new a concept as the CCG was at the time, and how popular MtG was at the time as well, it still was no where near popular enough to warrant televising the tournements and thankfully the coverage died a quick death. Imagine accouncers calling plays and actions in a Magic game as if it were a sports contest and then realize that the reality was even worse than it sounds in your head.
Oh, my....
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Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
The fluff is there, the problem is the movie would have to be done "right". The best way they could conceivably do this is from the eyes of a imperial guardsman. People could relate to that. The movie would need to be done with live actors.
CGI in a setting set in the 40th millennium would be inevitable, but should be limited wherever possible. To often directors go way overboard on CGI & mistake "lots of explosions" for a good movie.
If they could capture "grimdark", it could change cinema forever & we would see a revival like never before.
Games Workshop had the opportunity to expand the fan base with the Space Hulk board game, those miniatures were AMAZING and could of sold decently in toy stores and supermarkets.
could start with some sort of PDF on a fringe world, where the xenophobia and racism are much lesser. Maybe a independent human world? Have them fight off some alien force? Greenskins? Perhaps have them stuck between fading loyalty to the emperor and a Tau empire force trying to turn them to the "greater good". The PDF would provide a good middle ground, the empire of course would have the whole grim dark thing going, and the Tau would be a more "light" force to give a contrast to the "grim dark" of the empire.
The thing that got me interested was White Dwarf with their play by play battle reports and pics of the action.
And I remember one being the SoB v an ork mek mob fighting it out for a small town.
So why can't there be a televised game of a themed battlefield with terrain and all?
It could be sort of like that time commander (I think that's the name?) from T.V where they did the major historic battles. But instead have the 40k ones based on say the battle for Terra during the HH, all the way up to the 13 Black Crusade so as to introduce the fluff side of the game also.
xruslanx wrote: And a high profile, well made, 40k film would be phenominally helpful. preferably inquisitor as that would have the most potential for an actual storyline rather than 'there is only war!'
Kind of like how the Hobbit gave a huge boost to GW's LOTR games and made them a mainstream thing?
Also, 40k is never going to have a good movie. One of the biggest reasons why 40k is a good setting for a game is that it's a blob of generic scifi archetypes mixed together so that no matter what army you make you can find a place for it in the setting. The downside is that 40k has very little to offer as a film, there just aren't any compelling stories or themes to work with and everything is hopelessly generic. All you'd get is another forgettable big-budget action movie with lots of battle scenes to entertain you for a couple hours but not much else. And if that's your goal then why bother with the 40k license? You can make the exact same film without giving GW a share of the profit, and the 40k brand name isn't big enough to bring in a lot of customers that wouldn't already pay to see it.
Well the original story line of Pilanius would have been pretty awesome. Overall the most unique things in 40K are also incredibly creepy; aka cherubims, adeptus mechanicum or too involved; dark eldar.
Pilanius? Really?
What story is there? He was just an ordinary soldier who happened to have the big, brass ovaries to tell a giant in powered armour "You shall not pass!", then got shot for it. Not exactly Film of the Year material.
You ever read Legion of the Damned? While it wouldn't make for a movie that would go down in the American Library of Congress archives, it'd reap in a lot of money if released as a Summer Blockbuster or a winter film.
The problem though isn't Warhammer being generic (which it isn't too much- while it "draws" from any fictions, it gives the final product a very unique feel compared to the material it draws from), it's that there's so much material to read through before you understand it. W40K isn't something you just pick up and 'hey I now understand everything', it involves trawling through mass amounts of fluff to get a good understanding of it. W40K would be hard to make a good movie off because unless you're marketing it to fans, it will take a long time to explain everything to the audience. I mean, we're talking about spending a full hour explaining everything to the audience. Unless you have a space marine serf or something serve as the avatar for the audience, eh, I just don't see how it could work.
Psienesis wrote: A television series would be a more-attainable goal than a Hollywood blockbuster. Mainly because the compromises required to make a Hollywood film would make a 40K film not a 40K film, which would piss off the pre-existing fans.. A true 40K film will only attract people who are already aware of the hobby.
TV can be done fairly cheaply.
Any resourceful fellows want to put together a kickstarter?
I have no idea how they would do a Hive City tho, would have to find some pretty grungy streets...
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
No. 40k is really nothing special. It's adequate as a game setting and is certainly better developed than GW's competition, but when you consider science fiction as a whole it's hopelessly generic. And the setting's primary appeal is the large-scale conflicts, while movies need character-driven stories. A 40k movie would be an entertaining two hours of big-budget action scenes, and might even make a net profit, but in the long run it would be forgotten in the sea of big-budget action movies the movie industry is busy throwing out as fast as they can.
If they could capture "grimdark", it could change cinema forever & we would see a revival like never before.
"Grimdark" is not something GW invented, and it certainly isn't going to be a major revolution in movies. At best a "grimdark" movie could improve on the "grimdark" genre a bit and maybe even make it onto those "top X scifi movies" lists.
Azazelx wrote: I'm not sure what you define as "mass appeal" here. Pick me the best, tightest, most balanced set of wargaming rules out there. More popular than 40k? Nope? What attracts us to 40k in the first place? The rules or the visuals?
Again, 40k's current market is the people who love the visuals enough to overcome the awful rules. But that's a limited market, and one that is probably exploited as much as possible right now. Expanding beyond the current market requires better rules because someone who isn't already drawn in by the visuals is going to toss the game in the trash once they spend a few minutes trying to figure out how to play it and failing miserably.
Now, 40k isn't going to get mass appeal just because GW fixes the rules. It's a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.
Dropping the book prices would sell more books to the converted, but it wouldn't change the fact that the models are the big profit-makers.
Again, you're making the mistake of looking at GW's current customer base instead of why people don't buy GW games. Right now the rulebooks are a major barrier to entry, you're spending $100+ just for the rules of the game before you buy a single model. A potential customer who isn't already determined to buy the game is going to be reluctant to pay that $100 just to see if they like the game enough to spend another $500 for the models. If GW instead released the rules (including codices) as a free download everyone who is even slightly interested could read them and (hopefully) be interested enough to take the next step.
No. I'm not.
I'm including everything from 40k to Crossfire. X-Wing to DBM. Bolt Action to Johnny Reb. Combine them all, then compare them to XBox or PlayStation's market size (let alone them combined, with Nintendo on top and the current handhelds for good measure).
I was replying to your comment about prices, not market size. Wargaming is only more expensive than video games if you define "wargaming" as "GW-style wargaming". Other wargames (X-Wing, Infinity, etc) are much cheaper than video games. You can buy a whole X-Wing or Infinity army for the price of a couple new releases, and a nice collection of armies (in multiple systems even) for the price of the hardware to play those games on. Price is only a barrier to entry for GW games because of GW's unbelievable idiocy in making it a barrier to entry.
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
No. 40k is really nothing special. It's adequate as a game setting and is certainly better developed than GW's competition, but when you consider science fiction as a whole it's hopelessly generic. And the setting's primary appeal is the large-scale conflicts, while movies need character-driven stories. A 40k movie would be an entertaining two hours of big-budget action scenes, and might even make a net profit, but in the long run it would be forgotten in the sea of big-budget action movies the movie industry is busy throwing out as fast as they can.
If they could capture "grimdark", it could change cinema forever & we would see a revival like never before.
"Grimdark" is not something GW invented, and it certainly isn't going to be a major revolution in movies. At best a "grimdark" movie could improve on the "grimdark" genre a bit and maybe even make it onto those "top X scifi movies" lists.
Azazelx wrote: I'm not sure what you define as "mass appeal" here. Pick me the best, tightest, most balanced set of wargaming rules out there. More popular than 40k? Nope? What attracts us to 40k in the first place? The rules or the visuals?
Again, 40k's current market is the people who love the visuals enough to overcome the awful rules. But that's a limited market, and one that is probably exploited as much as possible right now. Expanding beyond the current market requires better rules because someone who isn't already drawn in by the visuals is going to toss the game in the trash once they spend a few minutes trying to figure out how to play it and failing miserably.
Now, 40k isn't going to get mass appeal just because GW fixes the rules. It's a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.
Dropping the book prices would sell more books to the converted, but it wouldn't change the fact that the models are the big profit-makers.
Again, you're making the mistake of looking at GW's current customer base instead of why people don't buy GW games. Right now the rulebooks are a major barrier to entry, you're spending $100+ just for the rules of the game before you buy a single model. A potential customer who isn't already determined to buy the game is going to be reluctant to pay that $100 just to see if they like the game enough to spend another $500 for the models. If GW instead released the rules (including codices) as a free download everyone who is even slightly interested could read them and (hopefully) be interested enough to take the next step.
No. I'm not.
I'm including everything from 40k to Crossfire. X-Wing to DBM. Bolt Action to Johnny Reb. Combine them all, then compare them to XBox or PlayStation's market size (let alone them combined, with Nintendo on top and the current handhelds for good measure).
I was replying to your comment about prices, not market size. Wargaming is only more expensive than video games if you define "wargaming" as "GW-style wargaming". Other wargames (X-Wing, Infinity, etc) are much cheaper than video games. You can buy a whole X-Wing or Infinity army for the price of a couple new releases, and a nice collection of armies (in multiple systems even) for the price of the hardware to play those games on. Price is only a barrier to entry for GW games because of GW's unbelievable idiocy in making it a barrier to entry.
I'll real quick point out here that something being 'generic' (which more or less doesn't exist as media goes) won't prevent it at all selling in theater or becoming big. Star Wars, one of the largest Sci Fi brands of all damn time that is an absolute monster as the franchise goes- is a fairly generic sci fi world drawn heavily from sci fi from the forties and fifties.The reason why people forget about this is that despite Lucas ripping from a lot of material, he managed to make it iconic enough that people completely forgot about this and simply left gawking who then bought into it. I think the reason why W40K feels 'generic' isn't that it draws from a lot of other material (nearly everyone does), but that GW has yet to actually meld it all together. The only factions that fit well as a style together are the Imperium and Chaos. They're Gothic Dystopian Sci Fi mixed with some Lovecraft. The other factions seem more like they were more tossed in, and despite being extremely old, the Orks, Necrons, Tau, Tyranids, and even the Eldar have yet to be smoothed out. While the Imperium and Chaos have a very smooth molding that work well together, the others feel kinda thrown in and don't seem to be coherent. Less 'here's another faction stylized to fit with everything' and more 'hey guys, you know what we need? Elves!'.
It doesn't help either that the Black Library is practically singuraly devoted to humans (Loyal and Chaos), yet barely touches on the xenos, or assigns bad authors to do so. Despite them being there from the start, I've never really felt the other factions fit as well together as the Imperium and Chaos. They just feel copypasted into W40K rather than a developed faction. The only iffy one is the Eldar, as I do feel they fit somewhat, just they need to be molded more. Meanwhile, the Tau and Necrons are so heavily different it's a bit jarring to go between them.
It probably results from W40K being first and foremost, a tabletop game. They need to be different, but in order to sell to a larger consumer base, they need to make them fit better. Anyone else understand me or feel the same way?
Well... because they are. 40K started out as Fantasy In Space. So you have "good guys" (Imperium), "bad guys" (Chaos), Elves (Eldar), Orcs (Orks), Dwarves (Squats) and, in a few mentions, mixtures of one or two (like the half-Eldar Ultramarines Librarian). Then you got "aliens" (Tyranids).
It wasn't until much later that someone decided to try to forge a consistent narrative out of all of this.
leotau1991 wrote: War machine seems to be the place to go. The shop is pushing it, its a new game, though the models are about the same price, you need less of em. That is my under standing.
Sounds like the problem isn't mass popularity then, it's people deciding they're done with GW's awful games and finding something better to do. So, again, the answer is that 40k will only become more popular when GW goes bankrupt and someone else buys the IP.
Yes I agree with you.
For as long as gw owns 40k it won't get popular. I once was telling a non-wargammer about the hobby, he thought it was cool until I told him the prices. So the prices are also a turn off.
i got some friends interested in it way back (late 90s). their parents laughed at it and shut it down promptly when they saw the price tag.
one friend got into it. painted a few guys and liked it. then he started to dislike the painting once he finally finished his second rank of chaos warriors in unit 1 of 3. dislike turned to hatred once he realized the game play was a pile of crap and that he spent 70 bucks on a metal chaos dragon. he kept saying "i cant believe i wasted that much money" lol
Wyzilla wrote: I'll real quick point out here that something being 'generic' (which more or less doesn't exist as media goes) won't prevent it at all selling in theater or becoming big. Star Wars, one of the largest Sci Fi brands of all damn time that is an absolute monster as the franchise goes- is a fairly generic sci fi world drawn heavily from sci fi from the forties and fifties.The reason why people forget about this is that despite Lucas ripping from a lot of material, he managed to make it iconic enough that people completely forgot about this and simply left gawking who then bought into it.
The difference is that Star Wars had the advantage of being released at a time when no comparable movie existed. Scifi in general was an under-exploited market, and nobody had the kind of visuals that Star Wars offered. 40k, on the other hand, can't sell itself by revolutionizing the special effects industry. There's no equivalent to the OMG WTF THAT IS AMAZING moment of stunned speechlessness when that first star destroyer passed overhead back in 1977. Sure, you can still make money by providing a movie full of impressive big-budget action scenes, but that alone isn't enough to make a movie memorable anymore. And the 40k setting itself just doesn't have enough to stand out in a crowded market.
Wyzilla wrote: I'll real quick point out here that something being 'generic' (which more or less doesn't exist as media goes) won't prevent it at all selling in theater or becoming big. Star Wars, one of the largest Sci Fi brands of all damn time that is an absolute monster as the franchise goes- is a fairly generic sci fi world drawn heavily from sci fi from the forties and fifties.The reason why people forget about this is that despite Lucas ripping from a lot of material, he managed to make it iconic enough that people completely forgot about this and simply left gawking who then bought into it.
The difference is that Star Wars had the advantage of being released at a time when no comparable movie existed. Scifi in general was an under-exploited market, and nobody had the kind of visuals that Star Wars offered. 40k, on the other hand, can't sell itself by revolutionizing the special effects industry. There's no equivalent to the OMG WTF THAT IS AMAZING moment of stunned speechlessness when that first star destroyer passed overhead back in 1977. Sure, you can still make money by providing a movie full of impressive big-budget action scenes, but that alone isn't enough to make a movie memorable anymore. And the 40k setting itself just doesn't have enough to stand out in a crowded market.
a 40k movie would come off as cliche and just generally be bad.
and to the guy that said it could top avatar, no, just no. avatar had a 237 million dollar budget.
edit: i think the closest we got and will ever get to a halfway decent 40k movie will be starship troops. it's basically guard vs tyranids.
Commissar Benny wrote: If Games Workshop could produce a movie that could capture the 40k universe, I promise you would see a massive increase in popularity like nothing you have seen before. It would dwarf LOTR, Avatar, everything.
No. 40k is really nothing special. It's adequate as a game setting and is certainly better developed than GW's competition, but when you consider science fiction as a whole it's hopelessly generic. And the setting's primary appeal is the large-scale conflicts, while movies need character-driven stories. A 40k movie would be an entertaining two hours of big-budget action scenes, and might even make a net profit, but in the long run it would be forgotten in the sea of big-budget action movies the movie industry is busy throwing out as fast as they can.
Can someone please tell me how a hybrid of classic fantasy literature (tolkenism) and deep space empires, settlements and frontiers (star ship trooper) is generic?
Cause I've never heard of anything like this universe, on this scale, or with this much depth before in regards to "science fiction as a whole".
Orks in space? Yep not original.... Elves in space? Heard that so many times.... The game has a metric-gak-ton of unique stories and lore to draw from, you probably just haven't read it.
In terms of the universe as a whole in regards to the genere, I've never seen anything this dark before, the extreme racism, xenophobia, cannibalism, vices, "openly torturing society's", the only thing generic about it is the Space Marines and the Tyranids, the rest is relatively fresh.
Wyzilla wrote: [
I'll real quick point out here that something being 'generic' (which more or less doesn't exist as media goes) won't prevent it at all selling in theater or becoming big. Star Wars, one of the largest Sci Fi brands of all damn time that is an absolute monster as the franchise goes- is a fairly generic sci fi world drawn heavily from sci fi from the forties and fifties.The reason why people forget about this is that despite Lucas ripping from a lot of material, he managed to make it iconic enough that people completely forgot about this and simply left gawking who then bought into it. I think the reason why W40K feels 'generic' isn't that it draws from a lot of other material (nearly everyone does), but that GW has yet to actually meld it all together. The only factions that fit well as a style together are the Imperium and Chaos. They're Gothic Dystopian Sci Fi mixed with some Lovecraft. The other factions seem more like they were more tossed in, and despite being extremely old, the Orks, Necrons, Tau, Tyranids, and even the Eldar have yet to be smoothed out. While the Imperium and Chaos have a very smooth molding that work well together, the others feel kinda thrown in and don't seem to be coherent. Less 'here's another faction stylized to fit with everything' and more 'hey guys, you know what we need? Elves!'.
It doesn't help either that the Black Library is practically singuraly devoted to humans (Loyal and Chaos), yet barely touches on the xenos, or assigns bad authors to do so. Despite them being there from the start, I've never really felt the other factions fit as well together as the Imperium and Chaos. They just feel copypasted into W40K rather than a developed faction. The only iffy one is the Eldar, as I do feel they fit somewhat, just they need to be molded more. Meanwhile, the Tau and Necrons are so heavily different it's a bit jarring to go between them.
It probably results from W40K being first and foremost, a tabletop game. They need to be different, but in order to sell to a larger consumer base, they need to make them fit better. Anyone else understand me or feel the same way?
Yeah, well those races haven't really had enough time to smooth over, Orks are never going to feel smoothed into it, because they were conformed to the "wrong genre" if you believe that it is a Sci-Fi universe instead of a Tolkeinist-Sci-Fi setting, Tau is based on feudal japan, so that's alien in itself to this western workshop without and real understanding of their culture (assuming this is true), not sure about necrons but the rest feel pretty coherent, if anything the Tyranid is the most well placed xeno as the unknown threat beyond the fringes of space.
On a side note of everything ripping of everything, you shouldn't get too caught up in this petty bs, everything has an influence and unless it completely rips it off without it's own unique flavour (which 40k hasn't) then it can usually be considered creative, if not partially original as well. At certain point in time creativity will inevitably peak, which is why you are seeing so many saturated markets.
It is my opinion that 3 main reasons keep WH40K from becoming mainstream.
The first and most important reason is cost. Just to field the bare minimum army 1 HQ, and 2 Troops, it costs a beginning player 15 to $20 for thier HQ. $30 for each box of troops. $75 for the Basic Rulebook. $35 to $60 for thier codex for the army they choose to field. So its $185 minimum to play the game and have the basic materials.
I've mentioned something similar to the past relating to what the OP is saying. I also saw some people suggest a well done 40k film. To add to that argument, I feel that a TV show of HBO production quality would go a long way further than a film. Maybe the dudes from the Starz series Sparticus can make a comeback as Space Marines lol
Well there's some good points made on here already so I ment say them over but here's how I think this could get more popular:
1) They have to first make the sets cheaper obviously but come painted (with unpainted kits available) because not everyone has the time to spend painting little plastic figure
2) Make the mini rulebook available separately at 30 bucks or so because you can buy it on eBay for that brand new and people will still buy the Brb for fluff if they want
3) bring the kits to big stores eg. Walmart target etc because not every town has a game store that people know about but most people have a big block store
4) make the rules a bit more starter friendly with a scenario book that comes separately because the scenarios in dv are good but there's only 5 and the scenarios would help people learn faster
That's all I can think of right now but I don't think 40k will ever be like poker... Because nobody wants to watch people push around little plastic men, it would be like watching someone play risk on TV... People wouldn't watch it (at least not enough)
SYKOJAK wrote: It is my opinion that 3 main reasons keep WH40K from becoming mainstream.
The first and most important reason is cost. Just to field the bare minimum army 1 HQ, and 2 Troops, it costs a beginning player 15 to $20 for thier HQ. $30 for each box of troops. $75 for the Basic Rulebook. $35 to $60 for thier codex for the army they choose to field. So its $185 minimum to play the game and have the basic materials.
I'd argue that the biggest reason is the cost. However, I feel it flawed to only look at the physical price of it. Don't forget the time it takes to build it to actually be able to play it. The time taken to understand all the contradictory rules, to discover all of the other rules that every codex gets taht isn't even in the main rule book, and then painting which is expected by many players and even more so in tournaments. Also, the rules are mediocre at best. A game like X-Wing can do wonders. Cheap entry, although expansions are pretty pricey in comparison to a game, they still are at a reasonable price. Also, you hardly need to do anything to set up the models and painting them is an option since they are already prepared for you. A game that has such easy acccess is far more capable of gaining mass popularity even if it wasn't Star Wars.
Deschain wrote: Can someone please tell me how a hybrid of classic fantasy literature (tolkenism) and deep space empires, settlements and frontiers (star ship trooper) is generic?
You just answered your own question: it's generic because it's a bunch of generic scifi/fantasy cliches blobbed together into a single IP. This is bad for two reasons:
1) Because 40k just rips off everyone else there's no need to make a 40k movie. If you want to make elves and orks in space you can rip off Tolkien yourself and avoid having to pay GW for the 40k license and deal with all the baggage of the existing IP.
2) The slight changes GW makes to those cliches don't really inspire a revolutionary movie. There really aren't all that many story options for space elves that you can't do with normal fantasy elves, so a movie with space elves is unlikely to push the boundaries of the genre very far. It might make a decent movie, but a decent movie isn't going to make a lasting impression beyond the next few decent movies in the genre.
Cause I've never heard of anything like this universe, on this scale, or with this much depth before in regards to "science fiction as a whole".
40k doesn't really have depth. It's a pretty shallow universe: throw a bunch of scifi/fantasy cliches together, have them fight to the death. What it has is quantity, not depth. There are a lot of fairly shallow "enemy X is invading, kill them and save the planet!" stories, which is exactly what you want as background material for a wargame. But this is bad for a movie since you can't even attempt to cover that whole quantity in a single movie. So most of 40k's fluff has to be abandoned, and once you focus in on a single story you don't have anything all that impressive.
In terms of the universe as a whole in regards to the genere, I've never seen anything this dark before, the extreme racism, xenophobia, cannibalism, vices, "openly torturing society's", the only thing generic about it is the Space Marines and the Tyranids, the rest is relatively fresh.
"Horrible oppressive empire" is a scifi cliche, and not one that makes a particularly good movie. A good movie needs characters the audience can identify with, and emphasizing the worst of the Imperium just means that the audience will hate all of your characters.
On a side note of everything ripping of everything, you shouldn't get too caught up in this petty bs, everything has an influence and unless it completely rips it off without it's own unique flavour (which 40k hasn't) then it can usually be considered creative, if not partially original as well.
It's not about some moral high ground about being "true creativity", it's a question of what it takes to revolutionize a genre. 40k takes well-established ideas in scifi/fantasy and makes an interesting gaming setting out of them, but it doesn't really do anything ambitious enough to make the kind of genre-shaping movie that can drive mass popularity of the associated toys.
Deschain wrote: Can someone please tell me how a hybrid of classic fantasy literature (tolkenism) and deep space empires, settlements and frontiers (star ship trooper) is generic?
You just answered your own question: it's generic because it's a bunch of generic scifi/fantasy cliches blobbed together into a single IP. This is bad for two reasons:
1) Because 40k just rips off everyone else there's no need to make a 40k movie. If you want to make elves and orks in space you can rip off Tolkien yourself and avoid having to pay GW for the 40k license and deal with all the baggage of the existing IP.
2) The slight changes GW makes to those cliches don't really inspire a revolutionary movie. There really aren't all that many story options for space elves that you can't do with normal fantasy elves, so a movie with space elves is unlikely to push the boundaries of the genre very far. It might make a decent movie, but a decent movie isn't going to make a lasting impression beyond the next few decent movies in the genre.
Cause I've never heard of anything like this universe, on this scale, or with this much depth before in regards to "science fiction as a whole".
40k doesn't really have depth. It's a pretty shallow universe: throw a bunch of scifi/fantasy cliches together, have them fight to the death. What it has is quantity, not depth. There are a lot of fairly shallow "enemy X is invading, kill them and save the planet!" stories, which is exactly what you want as background material for a wargame. But this is bad for a movie since you can't even attempt to cover that whole quantity in a single movie. So most of 40k's fluff has to be abandoned, and once you focus in on a single story you don't have anything all that impressive.
In terms of the universe as a whole in regards to the genere, I've never seen anything this dark before, the extreme racism, xenophobia, cannibalism, vices, "openly torturing society's", the only thing generic about it is the Space Marines and the Tyranids, the rest is relatively fresh.
"Horrible oppressive empire" is a scifi cliche, and not one that makes a particularly good movie. A good movie needs characters the audience can identify with, and emphasizing the worst of the Imperium just means that the audience will hate all of your characters.
On a side note of everything ripping of everything, you shouldn't get too caught up in this petty bs, everything has an influence and unless it completely rips it off without it's own unique flavour (which 40k hasn't) then it can usually be considered creative, if not partially original as well.
It's not about some moral high ground about being "true creativity", it's a question of what it takes to revolutionize a genre. 40k takes well-established ideas in scifi/fantasy and makes an interesting gaming setting out of them, but it doesn't really do anything ambitious enough to make the kind of genre-shaping movie that can drive mass popularity of the associated toys.
A TV show could however. Something a kin to the caliber of The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones.
As for 40k ripping of everything, I had no idea The Lord of the Rings was set in space?
Did those orcs (who have more in common with goblins) use guns and scrapped together machinery too?
Tbh the orces in WH40k have more in common with the Reavers from Firefly.
Game of Thrones pretty much rips off British and Eastern-Europe mythology, the major plot line is pretty much the Battle of Hastings. But this was considered original and creative, the "American Tolkein", you know why? Because it found it's niche (focus on memorable characters and the relationships/politics between them) just like Warhammer 40k. We'll just have to agree to disagree, not everything has to revolutionize a genre just to be original or creative. It just has to do something different (hence the definition of those two words)....
And are you saying that the history of the Chaos, Humans, Eldar or a factions like the Dark Angels or Dark Eldar don't have depth and multiple layers? Some of the newer factions don't, but the more established ones absolutely do.
There is no popular setting that involves a huge dystopian Empire of Mankind that's brimming with heresy and grimdark. You could draw comparisons, but you can do that with anything.
dakkajet wrote: People watch the movie, at the start of the movie they have a clip about the minitures. Then people might join the hobby.
sop telling me how they could have sold the hobbit...Seriously an add before the movie would have drowned GW with cash.Also:How in gorks name could you complain about 40ks popularity?Play the LOTR sbg THEN talk to me about popularity.
First, pricing. Don't get me wrong, I still buy what I can afford. I'm just pointing out that if they were to lower their prices, they would actually make more money and turn a higher profit. This is because if they were to lower the prices by even half (which would still give them a huge profit even with their current sales), they would sell 6 or more times as much product. You don't have to be Einstein to see that this would net them MUCH more than they are making now and would greatly expand their product in the "gamer" community and make parents and grandparant much more likely to open their pocketbooks and wallets and get more young players into the game.
Instead of only selling to indys, sell product to places like toys are us, book stores and such. I remember Waldenbooks carrying it and it selling. This would make them more visible and more easily bought (again, think parents and grandparants)
Advertisement. I'm not talking tv ads and such. I'm talking about the more subtle stuff. Remember when the Twilight Zone came out again a few years ago hosted by Forest Whittacre? There was an episode where a kid was painting models and one came to life. They made a fake character up and used generic models. Had they used GW models and a warhammer fantasy character instead, it would not have made a bit of difference in the episode but I BET there woulda been a LOT of people who either woulda recognized it from playing or later, recognized the models and logo from the tv show and been more likely to buy product. By making themselves more visible in things like that or in movies, they could get a lot of advertisement.
Speaking of movies. We all know that the fluff has a buttload of possibilities. Yes, I was a sucker who bought the sad space marine movie they put out and was disappointed. By having their writers come up with good screenplays, they could have a shot of having a REAL movie made (I would stick with a guard war movie or even better yet, an inquisition movie and stay away from space marines as they are too one dimensional and the size difference would make actors hard to find and special effects more expensive). THAT would greatly boost sales. Especially if combined with lower prices.
Oh come now, doing a 40k movie (a real one, not Ultramarines) wouldn't be that hard to do. With all the great scripts that came out of the games, a movie is just a step up.
How do you do it? Obviously you take it from the Imperiums side, because they are the "would-be good guys." But what position? A Commisar? A Terran Lord? A Space Marine?
How about all of the above? Or how about we just start with the Horus Heresy?
The point here is, you don't have to make the movie all about how good the Space Marines are. In fact, you make the whole movie about how good the Imperium ISN'T and how the viewer is having to come to that conclusion by the end of the movie after, lets say in the example of We Are One from Treacheries of the Space Marines, you have an Alpha Legion Space Marine that usurps the Inquisitor being followed the whole time, which leads to the destruction of an entire Imperial Guard Regiment.
It can be done, if only we were to let the reigns go a bit and let the setting be what it is: Good guys getting their nuts stomped on by Chaos Space Marines, who are feilding Xeno's to their fight, which in turn brings the other "good guy races."
It is SOOOOO DO-ABLE it is driving me insane!
And where do you go after the first movie? SOOO MANY PLACES.
In fact, there should be more movies completely disjointed than anything else. I don't understand why this isn't happening. @.@
If a movie isn't possible there is something called adds on tv. An add showing of the hobby and letting you know we're too find your local gw. People see the add go too gw and some of them will start the hobby.
ansacs wrote: You have a very basic misunderstanding of poker and your idea that a miniatures game could ever become as cheap as a deck of cards defies physics. If you want to compare warhammer to a more popular game then it would have to be MtG or video games.
1) Poker has been mainstream for at least two hundred years in the USA, you can see posters for poker tournaments and services in saloons related to poker all through the 1800's.
2) No matter how you do it you can never make a 3D figurine for less than you can make a 2D representation. If GW actually made figurines for the price of a pack of cards they would have to be green army men level of quality. At which point they will loose any customer base they had and will not be able to compete with Hasbro who has the money to crush them like insects.
Now if we want to discuss how GW could improve their popularity and possibly get to video game popularity then some of the ideas mentioned would help greatly.
1) Tighten up the rules so they are more streamlined and error free.
2) Create a cheaper starter level. Just as they have forgeworld they should release the cheapie mono pose plastic marines so new players can have a cheap way to get in.
3) Think about shifting the money making from the books to the figurines. If you look it up you will see that sales of PS2 consoles were not a money maker for sony. Instead they made the money off of game sales and developer packages/rights. GW could think of a similar approach where the basic rules and absolute minimum entry is cheap and the upgrades make up the profit.
4) Advertise more. Honestly the best advertisement GW ever did was the DoW video game series. That thing probably moved more product than any other single decision GW has made. They really should encourage more of this.
5) Effort level is a huge detriment to the "mainstream" popularity of this hobby. This unfortunately is probably not something that can be completely overcome without destroying the hobby. Perhaps if they provide their minimum entry in an optional pre machined painted version (can look pretty good if we are talking SM or orks) this would give people a way to get started and not have grey figures.
The interesting thing is GW has already taken a step in the right direction with their faster release schedule. As long as they don't change armies mid edition and stay with their current edition change time line then this could be a positive change. They just need to get a better at play testing and FAQ publishing.
Excellent post. I would like to add that poker is also popular because of the gambling aspect. Gambling is addicting and people get addicted to gambling. Unless we want to add a gambling aspect to 40K we will never get that addictive draw (which I think is a good thing).
Second I would like to add GW needs to have more support to retailers.
1)Send prizes to retailers for game support. ie the store holds an event/tournament in store and people who show up get something for showing up and the winner gets a prize. Of course the store can add onto the prize with their own incentives. But rather than just host tournaments if you show up to play 40K on game night and get you get a mini, t-shirt, poster etc. it might make more people show up. If GW sells one box set off the price of a couple dozen posters I am sure they would break even.
2) Help and educate retailers on how to draw people into the program. I have been to too many hobby stores with owners who have no idea how to sell or promote a product.
1: More computer games. Screw going console. It won't play to your strengths. You need tactics games like Dawn of War (1st incarnation, not DoW2. DoW2 was a learning experience of what not to do). Also, an MMORPG for WH40K would also carry the franchise far and threaten other successful series like WoW, etc.
2: TV shows. Or even just official online shorts. Like how they do their RP's or for example the on-going campaigns (like Cadia?) except animate them for fans that can't buy ever piece of fluff and book out there. Even just animating a few key things like Draigo getting thrown into the Warp or Abbadon claiming Drach'nyen at the base of the Tower of Silence. Animation will carry this franchise far.
3: MOVIE. MOVIE. OMG. MOVIE. With as visual and ADD/ADHD ridden as people are these days, a movie is the way to go. Which brings me to point 4
4: Unless you mainstream the models and make them cheaper, the table top game isn't going to catch on in a big way for many many reasons. I am a die-hard fan, but I'm struggling to pay the table top because I can't afford $50 books and $100 models, on top of expenses like paint, glue, etc. So pushing the tabletop isn't going to help spread the word a whole lot. In fact, I didn't know there was a table top until after I was well into and through the DoW series. That's just how the console generations are. They like to see things move, not sit around and do the math.
5: Promotion. BIG PROMOTION. I want to see a squad of Space Marines in full armor during a parade. I want a Librarian at the mall handing out fliers to Games Workshop. I want to see 40K Angry Birds/etc in the same or greater quantities/consistencies as crap like Star Wars and Star Trek. Until that level of promotion can be reached, I feel like people are just going to be spinning their wheels. Best promoter for kids? Toys! Action figures! I know this seems redundant with the way things are set up now, but my 3 year old is in love with my Chaos Army, if only it weren't so frail and didn't fall apart, maybe moved a bit more, etc. So making these guys more like G.I. Joe and less like Golden Daemon Contests would take the franchise far.
TheRedWingArmada wrote: Also, an MMORPG for WH40K would also carry the franchise far and threaten other successful series like WoW, etc.
Just no. WoW dominates that industry already, the last thing we need is another WoW clone that is forgotten alongside all the other failed WoW clones.
2: TV shows. Or even just official online shorts. Like how they do their RP's or for example the on-going campaigns (like Cadia?) except animate them for fans that can't buy ever piece of fluff and book out there. Even just animating a few key things like Draigo getting thrown into the Warp or Abbadon claiming Drach'nyen at the base of the Tower of Silence. Animation will carry this franchise far.
I think you're missing the point a bit. Giving an animated show to the fans doesn't help an IP's popularity since those people are already your customers. Nor will a bunch of "awesome" scenes matter to anyone who isn't a fan already.
3: MOVIE. MOVIE. OMG. MOVIE. With as visual and ADD/ADHD ridden as people are these days, a movie is the way to go. Which brings me to point 4
As mentioned before, a 40k movie is not really a good investment for anyone. It would be hard to make anything beyond a mindless action movie, and mindless action movies don't tend to make any long-term impact. Plus, 40k's shameless ripping off of everything else in the genre means that a movie studio has little reason to deal with the baggage of the 40k license. Anyone who thinks that a movie in the 40k sub-genre would be successful can just rip off the same ideas and make a movie without all that baggage.
4: Unless you mainstream the models and make them cheaper, the table top game isn't going to catch on in a big way for many many reasons. I am a die-hard fan, but I'm struggling to pay the table top because I can't afford $50 books and $100 models, on top of expenses like paint, glue, etc. So pushing the tabletop isn't going to help spread the word a whole lot. In fact, I didn't know there was a table top until after I was well into and through the DoW series. That's just how the console generations are. They like to see things move, not sit around and do the math.
Just be careful what you wish for. GW has very small profit margins right now (mostly thanks to their own incompetence), cutting prices would require cutting quality at the same time and throwing away one of the few advantages GW has over its competition. You aren't going to see a meaningful price cut that doesn't sacrifice quality until GW dies and the IP goes to a better company.
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Deschain wrote: As for 40k ripping of everything, I had no idea The Lord of the Rings was set in space?
Did those orcs (who have more in common with goblins) use guns and scrapped together machinery too?
You're missing the point. Yes, 40k's Tolkien ripoffs have some superficial differences from the usual fantasy cliches, but they're superficial differences. Orks don't suddenly function differently in the story just because you give them guns (along with everyone else in the setting). You're still telling the same story as you would be in the fantasy setting, except with different visual elements.
Game of Thrones pretty much rips off British and Eastern-Europe mythology, the major plot line is pretty much the Battle of Hastings. But this was considered original and creative, the "American Tolkein", you know why? Because it found it's niche (focus on memorable characters and the relationships/politics between them) just like Warhammer 40k.
The problem with that is that 40k's characters, as a whole, aren't very memorable. You've got an endless series of "awesome chapter master X who killed A, B, C, D and saved planets blah, blah and blah" characters who exist for the sole purpose of letting the player project their own characteristics onto the leader of their army. Likewise, you don't really have very much interaction between them, just a list of battles to set up a tabletop scenario. That's fine for a tabletop game or a mindless action movie, but it's not going to make much else.
We'll just have to agree to disagree, not everything has to revolutionize a genre just to be original or creative. It just has to do something different (hence the definition of those two words)....
But the claim was that 40k could make the kind of genre-defining movie that brings the IP to the level of mass appeal of something like Star Wars or LOTR. I'm sure that a 40k movie, done right, would have a good chance of making a profit, but that's not going to give you the next Star Wars.
And are you saying that the history of the Chaos, Humans, Eldar or a factions like the Dark Angels or Dark Eldar don't have depth and multiple layers? Some of the newer factions don't, but the more established ones absolutely do.
They have multiple layers, but it's multiple bland layers. Yes, there's a detailed listing of all the battles they've fought, but "some of our guys were traitors and now we hunt them down" is far from original.
Deschain wrote: Game of Thrones pretty much rips off British and Eastern-Europe mythology, the major plot line is pretty much the Battle of Hastings. But this was considered original and creative, the "American Tolkein", you know why? Because it found it's niche (focus on memorable characters and the relationships/politics between them) just like Warhammer 40k.
The problem with that is that 40k's characters, as a whole, aren't very memorable. You've got an endless series of "awesome chapter master X who killed A, B, C, D and saved planets blah, blah and blah" characters who exist for the sole purpose of letting the player project their own characteristics onto the leader of their army. Likewise, you don't really have very much interaction between them, just a list of battles to set up a tabletop scenario. That's fine for a tabletop game or a mindless action movie, but it's not going to make much else.
Peregrine hit the nail on the head there.
Fun exercise for anyone trying to argue that the characters of 40k are memorable, or even well thought out: Name 3 personal details about your 3 favourite in game (must have a model/rules) characters. Not who they fought, where they fought or who they hate, actual personal details. Does Yarrick have any hobbies? Did Eldrad ever love anyone? We really know all about these characters once you remove their career from the equation.
We wrote: Excellent post. I would like to add that poker is also popular because of the gambling aspect. Gambling is addicting and people get addicted to gambling. Unless we want to add a gambling aspect to 40K we will never get that addictive draw (which I think is a good thing).
You've obviously not seen the "Paint it all before you buy more" thread which very CLEARLY shows the addictive nature of buying 40k miniatures and building new armies...
Skriker
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TheRedWingArmada wrote: Also, an MMORPG for WH40K would also carry the franchise far and threaten other successful series like WoW, etc.
You mean the same way the WFB MMORPG didn't carry the franchise or threaten other successful series like WoW? These games have a limtied audience to begin with and an MMO will appeal to those who *also* like playing RPGS, but not every player of 40k will jump in. Also there will be some players from the MMO side who will jump in because the world looks interesting, but only some of them may make the shift to the actual table top game because an RPG *based* on 40k is not even remotely close to the same experience as a game of 40k. Most of the focused MMO players, though, are not going to become hard core 40k tabletop players, or even casual players. So an MMO will either live or die on its own merits, and will have limited impact on the 40k table top game. I enjoy playing Dark Heresy from time to time. It is a decent game and can be great fun, but it is closer to what you could expect from 40k themed MMO.
I think a larger point may have gone unnoticed here. I'm talking about how to spread the franchise on as natural an expansion course as possible. And when you think about it, isn't everything a rip of something else? Isn't that what inspiration is? There is enough differences in the 40k universe to still make it unique to itself, and the best in its class. We've got tons of midevial examples, and honestly I consider WH40K to be more successful than WHFB. Maybe that's just my personal ignorance, but then again I started playing Dawn of War and moved to the Table Top.
So you see, I'm an example of the market they could/should ply too. I know this is about how to make the table top stronger, but it's specialized enough that it'll never have as large a player base as the more easily accessible games.
Honestly, if I never heard of DoW, I would never have heard of the tabletop. My brother is the same way, and so are a couple friends of ours. Many of them would play the table top but it's too expensive and they don't have the time. They also like the lore, but they want to see it so they troll youtube for videos, as do I.
And how would this not help the franchise as a whole?
GW aside because, again, newbie and all that. The computer game I was in for ever and still play more frequently than my CSM army, to date.
Also, I think it was this thread that was suggesting some of the characters are not memorable? Chaos as lots of memorable characters. lol. Ahriman, for example, has a brother Ormuzhg* (spell chk?), carries the souls of his entire legion with him, save a few powerful psychers saved from the Rubric, and his Father seems likely to have outcasted his favored son in order to come back and kill him later and take his rightful place on the throne of Tzeentch. :O Heavy stuff.
Or how about in the heresy when the rememberencers of the Emperors Children come under attack and Serena D'Angelus starts raping and murdering men so she can use their guts and excrement to paint with? That's not memorable enough? There may not be one central character to draw upon at all times, but there are enough to make an impact that they change everything for later characters. A perfect example of this, I feel is Ignace Karkasy. A lowly remembrancer with a speech problem and drinking impediment (mutually afflicting) who is written down in the record books after being killed by Horus for speaking the Truth in the face of a Heresy none could appreciate at that time. Hell, if we're trying to figure out what to produce in terms of a show or movie, the Horus Heresy would be a great start. At least there the Imperium still looks like good guys that "normal" people can relate too.
Balanced factions, both internally and externally.
This. This alone would make 40k's popularity jump. I'd bet it would double just from the people who quit to go play other games coming back.
Completely agree with what these two said. Not only would it make both competitive and casual players happy, but would likely bring lots of people back. I also agree with Peregrine's point (I think it was him) that unfortunately it looks like we will have to wait for GW to go under and someone to hopefully want to buy the IP and make a decent game of it. Don't hold your breath though.
There are many things that might be done to boost 40k popularity
1: Video game franchises, not just dawn of war, look at the various Star Wars video game franchises that cover quite a bit
2: make a series, honestly I think the best approach would be to make the Eisenhorn series into an anime, I know to many this sounds like a complete turn off, but within an anime crowd you have more 'nerds' and essentially young adults who odds are do not care so much about social image.
3: Reduce prices or....HAVE SALES, this I think would get more people into playing 40k than even dawn of war did, telling a friend "Hey man, I know you like daemons but the price sucks, well around christmas they have a 20% off sale. Or once a month have an army from both fantasy and 40k on sale (lets say november is blood angels month, where blood angels are 10% off, and same thing for skaven.) I think this would honestly drive up sales to the point of stocks going even higher for GW.
4: Advertise, GW really needs to suck it up and get in bed with Marvel, or DC, or WoTC and pay to have ads thrown in comics/magazines
5: Better incentives to get FLGS' to carry their product, better prices, whatever it takes to get more small business' to carry their product: More FLGS' carry your product, the more exposure you recieve, the more exposure you recieve the more people are likely to buy your product.
6: While we all know they are not the best miniatures in the market, GW believes it, if GW started really pushing this angle/delusion they may convince more people to buy their models instead of resorting to a competitor
7: slow down codex creep, without codex creep much of the game would become stagnant, however the rapid codex creep hurts many armies and make many players either stop or pause their purchases, and more importantly their playing hence killing GW exposure.
EDIT:
8:Focus on their FFG stuff, right now that is gaining popularity due to the fact that there are relatively few fun scifi TTRPGs, if they can corner the market on Scifi tabletop RPGs it would go a long way for them, look how long WoTC had the generic fantasy RPG sector cornered.
It's not codex "creep" as much as codices being randomly assigned awesomeness, and others being assigned "meh". But still, the balance just isn't there.
:Focus on their FFG stuff, right now that is gaining popularity due to the fact that there are relatively few fun scifi TTRPGs, if they can corner the market on Scifi tabletop RPGs it would go a long way for them, look how long WoTC had the generic fantasy RPG sector cornered.
GW doesn't own FFG, and WotC has had the fantasy RPG market cornered only since they bought TSR, which was.... less than 20 years ago. 15 years? Something like that. Dungeons & Dragons, the game that has cornered the fantasy RPG market, has been around since the 70s.
:Focus on their FFG stuff, right now that is gaining popularity due to the fact that there are relatively few fun scifi TTRPGs, if they can corner the market on Scifi tabletop RPGs it would go a long way for them, look how long WoTC had the generic fantasy RPG sector cornered.
GW doesn't own FFG, and WotC has had the fantasy RPG market cornered only since they bought TSR, which was.... less than 20 years ago. 15 years? Something like that. Dungeons & Dragons, the game that has cornered the fantasy RPG market, has been around since the 70s.
Indeed, TSR sold because they were on the verge of bankruptcy, so WotC took a failing business model and made it succeed quite well, and as for ffg I was meaning more pressure and support from GW to pimp out the Dark Heresy system
Way too much would have to be done that GW will never do.
1) Actively balance the game. This means new edition, new race rules within a couple months (of a new edition not every few months lol). None of thise 4-6yr old codex that is barely playable in new rules bullcrap. Also means FAQing things that alter stat lines or points in case a model is proven too strong in the general meta, or utterly worthless.
2) Advertise. Ever seen an advertisement for 40k? or any tabletop? i havent. the entire game style is underground and you never, ever get wiff of it without either stumbling into a gamestore or knowing someone that plays it.
3) Make the Xenos actually have even footing with marines. All the xenos are specified armies that excel in one strat and are decent in another, sucky in a third. Marines can do all strats if you know what youre doing.
4) Price cuts. These models dont cost anywhere near as much as they sell in order to make, its almost 50% bloated just because its GW models not because of cost. The insane costs scare away so many new players its not even funny.
5) Proofread the damn rules and actively hunt gaping holes. Obviously some will skip through, but theres some pretty glaring holes that have to be house ruled because they either make 0 sense or are completely stupid RAW and ruin the game if played that way. Fortifications for one, occupying a building for another.
Finally, 6) Stop being a greedy as feth company with 100000 lawyers ready to sue anyones ass if they even think about using 40k in any way shape or form to make money without their permission. Reselling models/rules is illegal yeah, but noone is going to host a TV-based tournament since something that big will definitely get GW's lawyer attention. They would either deny it or put slowed rules if you asked them.
I don't think you've really kept up with the evolution of TV then.
Some TV can be done cheaply. But if you want a special-effects laden universe like 40K, it's going to have a huge price tag, or it's going to look like some crappy second rate basic channel show. The BBC and HBO put up approximate one hundred million dollars to make Season 1 of Rome. Season 2 of Game of Thrones was around seventy million. Walking Dead and Breaking Bad were around three million per episode, and those aren't shows that needed tremendously extensive visual effects.
If you look at one of the best written science fiction series ever made, Farscape, it was eventually done in by its 1.5 million dollars per episode price tag. And that was in the late 90s. A show like that with modern effects would easily run twice that these days.
In reality, a film isn't going to be nearly as hard to produce effectively as people make it out to. There's no need to explain everything about the background. The audience needs to know who the protagonists are, and who the film's antagonists are. That's it. They're not going to recap the whole of 40K. Say they make it Imperium vs some nasty Chaosy guys. In terms of what the audience needs to understand, the Horus Heresy can be boiled down to like four or five lines, lol. "In the dark and distant past, the legions of the Spess Mahreens, led by the immortal Emperor, succeeded in conquering nearly the whole of the known galaxy, crushing untold numbers of alien civilizations beneath their armored boots. But Horus, one of the Emprah's most trusted sons turned against his father, and corrupted nearly half the Imperium. After a short but brutal civil war, the tattered remnants of the traitors fled deep into Eye of Terror, a hellish area of space trapped between reality and the corrupted alternate dimension known as The Warp. And there, driven mad by cackling daemonic entities, they have remained for ten thousand years, plotting their revenge." Boom. 40K in a nutshell. This gets read by some kind of voice-over guy, and they show a montage of battles, then some angry, twisted Chaos Marine being all angry and ragey at the sky. Fade out, on with the movie. Audience has all it really needs to know. There's no need to explain the Eldar if they aren't going to be in the film. Heck, there's no need to even explain the Chaos gods.
Vineheart01 wrote: Way too much would have to be done that GW will never do.
1) Actively balance the game. This means new edition, new race rules within a couple months (of a new edition not every few months lol). None of thise 4-6yr old codex that is barely playable in new rules bullcrap. Also means FAQing things that alter stat lines or points in case a model is proven too strong in the general meta, or utterly worthless.
2) Advertise. Ever seen an advertisement for 40k? or any tabletop? i havent. the entire game style is underground and you never, ever get wiff of it without either stumbling into a gamestore or knowing someone that plays it.
3) Make the Xenos actually have even footing with marines. All the xenos are specified armies that excel in one strat and are decent in another, sucky in a third. Marines can do all strats if you know what youre doing.
4) Price cuts. These models dont cost anywhere near as much as they sell in order to make, its almost 50% bloated just because its GW models not because of cost. The insane costs scare away so many new players its not even funny.
5) Proofread the damn rules and actively hunt gaping holes. Obviously some will skip through, but theres some pretty glaring holes that have to be house ruled because they either make 0 sense or are completely stupid RAW and ruin the game if played that way. Fortifications for one, occupying a building for another.
Finally, 6) Stop being a greedy as feth company with 100000 lawyers ready to sue anyones ass if they even think about using 40k in any way shape or form to make money without their permission. Reselling models/rules is illegal yeah, but noone is going to host a TV-based tournament since something that big will definitely get GW's lawyer attention. They would either deny it or put slowed rules if you asked them.
None of this - except for perhaps #2 (and even then it will only remotely help) will do much to make 40k more popular to the size and scope of what the OP has stated. (Star Wars, Marvel, etc.) You need to think larger than the game or its component parts. You need to think of the IP in it's entirety. Meaning outside of the game. Film and Television are the only things at this point which will actively launch it to that higher stratosphere. (Potentially video games, but it would need to be an amazing one, which is revolutionary)
Once that is accomplished, you are talking about licensing the IP for action figures, toys, Happy Meals, etc etc...
People here keep complaining about the rules and prices... that's small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.
Lovable Renegade Rogue Trader and his interesting crew that you just grew to love, but are about to watch die meets New Alien Threat/New Tyranid Threat/New Necron Threat/Old Ancient Threat while exploring the outer regions of space on a Death World that has been scouted for his potential use as a Imperial Guard recruitment world.
Price is not the issue, most every hobby or form of entertainment is expensive. I don't play video games but if I wanted to get into them a PS4 and one game would set me back about $400. Making 40k cheaper will not attract a meaningful amount of new players. Most new players are kids and kids don't have that kind of money, their parents do, and they're just as likely to buy jr. $500 worth of 40k games he's asking for as the new PS4 he wants. It al depends on what he asks for the most.
You want popularity? Thousands of new players? Make 40k mainstream? It's easy to do, and it's done in every market out there. It's so obvious and so simple I can't believe no one has mentioned it. It's called Celebrity Endorsement. If famous or popular people are doing it, all their fans will want to too. Actors, rock stars, athletes, get these people playing 40k and the masses will follow. Drop a few hundred thousand dollars in endorsement fees and give them the rules and models (pre built and painted) and then let it be known that XYZ plays in his (or her) down time and fans will flock to the game. It works every time, all of the time.
cvtuttle wrote: People here keep complaining about the rules and prices... that's small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.
Rules are very important. Right now GW is limited to the few people who are willing to put up with terrible rules because they love the fluff/models so much. They're never going to grow beyond that market when anyone who isn't already interested in the game and committed to playing is probably going to throw their rulebook in the trash as soon as they try to play their first game. Expecting mainstream success is like expecting the latest buggy WoW clone to somehow take over the MMO market.
Solis Luna Astrum wrote: Price is not the issue, most every hobby or form of entertainment is expensive. I don't play video games but if I wanted to get into them a PS4 and one game would set me back about $400. Making 40k cheaper will not attract a meaningful amount of new players. Most new players are kids and kids don't have that kind of money, their parents do, and they're just as likely to buy jr. $500 worth of 40k games he's asking for as the new PS4 he wants. It al depends on what he asks for the most.
That's not true at all. Price is a huge barrier to entry. You might be well off and able to afford a $500 entertainment purchase, but not everyone is in a similar position. And when the cost to even start a hobby is $500+ a lot of people are going to say "that looks cool, but no thanks". And that's exactly what happens now. GW loses a lot of potential customers because of that initial cost, and until they do something about it they're going to have a hard time expanding beyond the dedicated fans who love the game so much that they're willing to pay that $500 up-front cost.
Plus, it's not a very good comparison. Most people by now are familiar with video games. They might not know the details of the new game/system, but they can reasonable expect that if they've enjoyed video games in the past they're probably going to be fairly happy with the next purchase. That's not true at all with something like 40k, where the average person has no reference point to judge how much they're going to enjoy their $500 purchase.
Veteran Sergeant wrote: In reality, a film isn't going to be nearly as hard to produce effectively as people make it out to. There's no need to explain everything about the background. The audience needs to know who the protagonists are, and who the film's antagonists are. That's it. They're not going to recap the whole of 40K. Say they make it Imperium vs some nasty Chaosy guys. In terms of what the audience needs to understand, the Horus Heresy can be boiled down to like four or five lines, lol. "In the dark and distant past, the legions of the Spess Mahreens, led by the immortal Emperor, succeeded in conquering nearly the whole of the known galaxy, crushing untold numbers of alien civilizations beneath their armored boots. But Horus, one of the Emprah's most trusted sons turned against his father, and corrupted nearly half the Imperium. After a short but brutal civil war, the tattered remnants of the traitors fled deep into Eye of Terror, a hellish area of space trapped between reality and the corrupted alternate dimension known as The Warp. And there, driven mad by cackling daemonic entities, they have remained for ten thousand years, plotting their revenge." Boom. 40K in a nutshell. This gets read by some kind of voice-over guy, and they show a montage of battles, then some angry, twisted Chaos Marine being all angry and ragey at the sky. Fade out, on with the movie. Audience has all it really needs to know. There's no need to explain the Eldar if they aren't going to be in the film. Heck, there's no need to even explain the Chaos gods.
But honestly, what's the point? If the movie is just good space marines vs. bad space marines it's going to be two hours of impressive action scenes, but not much to make a lasting impression on the genre. And of course once you've stripped it down to that minimalist version of the universe there's no reason to pay for the 40k license instead of just making a similar film from scratch.
Price is not the issue, most every hobby or form of entertainment is expensive. I don't play video games but if I wanted to get into them a PS4 and one game would set me back about $400. Making 40k cheaper will not attract a meaningful amount of new players. Most new players are kids and kids don't have that kind of money, their parents do, and they're just as likely to buy jr. $500 worth of 40k games he's asking for as the new PS4 he wants. It al depends on what he asks for the most.
Must be fun being an american m where parents have no problems with buying 500$ toys for their kids. If the hobby was cheaper or playable at a lower points level , it would be more popular . I have seen countless people check out w40k/WFB and then never start collecting , because the entry cost of an army is so high. Infinity and warmahordes are just as popular , as GW games here . WM could be even more popular , if PP weren't showing the finger to eastern europe.
Wardragoon wrote: 3: Reduce prices or....HAVE SALES, this I think would get more people into playing 40k than even dawn of war did, telling a friend "Hey man, I know you like daemons but the price sucks, well around christmas they have a 20% off sale. Or once a month have an army from both fantasy and 40k on sale (lets say november is blood angels month, where blood angels are 10% off, and same thing for skaven.) I think this would honestly drive up sales to the point of stocks going even higher for GW.
This is something I've long wished they would do. Each month pick an army from each game system and offer a discount on it from their stores and online store. If it is a line that doesn't normally sell as well give it a bigger discount to bump up some sales. Last sale I saw in a GW store was when my local GW moved from one end of the mall they were in to the other and they had a grand re-opening sale in the new store once it opened. They offered a 20% discount and in the 2 hours I was at the store there was a constant line of 20 people each with a few hundred dollars worth of minis in their arms even after the discount. I have never seen another sale in a GW store since. Now that local store is a one man operation that is barely open 40 hours a week.
Skriker
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cvtuttle wrote: None of this - except for perhaps #2 (and even then it will only remotely help) will do much to make 40k more popular to the size and scope of what the OP has stated. (Star Wars, Marvel, etc.) You need to think larger than the game or its component parts. You need to think of the IP in it's entirety. Meaning outside of the game. Film and Television are the only things at this point which will actively launch it to that higher stratosphere. (Potentially video games, but it would need to be an amazing one, which is revolutionary)
Once that is accomplished, you are talking about licensing the IP for action figures, toys, Happy Meals, etc etc...
People here keep complaining about the rules and prices... that's small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.
Yes but it is a start. Investing in TV and movies to attract an already shrinking audience for the base game itself is somewhat wasted money. Start improving the basic audience size by pulling more people into the game and then an investment in TV and/or movies could pay off. You at least need a minimal audience there to keep a TV show going until others hear about it, think it might be interesting and jump into watching it as well. A show like The Clone Wars got off the ground and ran for 5 seasons because there is a MASSIVE fan base for Star Wars out there already. 40k doesn't have anywhere near that kind of draw and it isn't going to just appear over night because a TV show based on 40k is put on TV. It has to start at the root level with fans who can afford to get into the game and enjoy playing the game because it is a good game that people actually want to play. Once you get that momentum going in the right direction instead of the lagging sales volume numbers of today, THEN you can consider expanding into bigger sources of media.
The simple fact of the matter is that without that solid basic fan base no TV show or movie is going to magically make 40k popular. It still has to survive on its own. When it comes down to it is a miniatures game and that is where the focus needs to be. I don't want a line of action figures, TV series, movies or other unrelated things with the 40k logo on them if the game still tanks. The reason people talk about rules and costs here is because we don't care about the IP, but we care about the GAME. Without the game what is the point of the IP?
Price is not the issue, most every hobby or form of entertainment is expensive. I don't play video games but if I wanted to get into them a PS4 and one game would set me back about $400. Making 40k cheaper will not attract a meaningful amount of new players. Most new players are kids and kids don't have that kind of money, their parents do, and they're just as likely to buy jr. $500 worth of 40k games he's asking for as the new PS4 he wants. It al depends on what he asks for the most.
Must be fun being an american m where parents have no problems with buying 500$ toys for their kids. If the hobby was cheaper or playable at a lower points level , it would be more popular . I have seen countless people check out w40k/WFB and then never start collecting , because the entry cost of an army is so high. Infinity and warmahordes are just as popular , as GW games here . WM could be even more popular , if PP weren't showing the finger to eastern europe.
Actually while there are some overindulgent parents in the US, most parents would laugh at their kid's demands for a $500 army just out of the blue or for the holidays. It is funny when people seem to think that is the norm and use it as an excuse for why GW's prices are acceptable. You are right, though, the buy in for this game is not even remotely acceptable to most people. I haven't gotten a new friend to join the game from the ground up in years. Why? Because they see my collection of minis, have fun playing a demo game and then start laughing when they look at the price on a single box at the store when they are ready to start playing. At my FLGS games with smaller buy ins are the norm now and 40k and WFB don't get played at all: Malifaux, Flames of War, and Warmachine/Hordes are the biggies. Uncharted seas was big for a while, but the rules were a bit cludgey as were the rules for Dystopian wars. People just don't want to pay the crazy prices GW demands anymore. I realized it was time to stop giving GW my money when I was able to buy a brand new Xbox 360, 3 brand new games and 7 older games for less than the new tyranid army I had planned out. The few 'nids I had already picked up are in the ebay queue now. At this stage I will be buying the last couple remaining codex updates I need for 6th edition and I am done with given GW any of my money. I love the fluff and building fun new armies, but the prices are just stupid now.
:Focus on their FFG stuff, right now that is gaining popularity due to the fact that there are relatively few fun scifi TTRPGs, if they can corner the market on Scifi tabletop RPGs it would go a long way for them, look how long WoTC had the generic fantasy RPG sector cornered.
GW doesn't own FFG, and WotC has had the fantasy RPG market cornered only since they bought TSR, which was.... less than 20 years ago. 15 years? Something like that. Dungeons & Dragons, the game that has cornered the fantasy RPG market, has been around since the 70s.
Indeed, TSR sold because they were on the verge of bankruptcy, so WotC took a failing business model and made it succeed quite well, and as for ffg I was meaning more pressure and support from GW to pimp out the Dark Heresy system
TSR did quite well for itself for many years... but then ran into the same problem that all other RPG companies eventually run into: Once the players have all the books they want, what else are they going to buy?
TSR was bought and sold several times before WotC got its hands on it.... and, no, D&D as a game was not failing, but TSR as a company was, the reliance on printing more and more books for 2nd Edition is the cause of this... printing costs were high, and the number of people buying the books low, simply because players either had no real need for the books (did anyone really need kits for their kits?) and other fantasy RPGs were pushing their way into the market...
... and let's not forget the rampant popularity of the White Wolf games that had kicked off in the early 90s. Vampire the Masquerade ate D&D's lunch for a good stretch there.
GW already had their hands on Dark Heresy. They published two books, washed their hands of the project, and sold it to FFG. While I have some issues with FFG's vision of the game, they have done a great job spinning out side-games and games in the same setting, even if these games are not really meant to be played together.
Alot of good suggestions, I am of an opinion that giving out free stuff goes a long way into getting folks started into the hobby. If they did demonstration games where they gave away the warlord for an army. That would help attract new players in the stores/ independant retailers. What good is a warlord without an army?
now if i remember right, GW got into a movie with Will smith. "enemy of the state." at the end his kid was reading the old school "free" copy of white dwarf(i with they bring those back)
TheRedWingArmada wrote: 1: More computer games. Screw going console. It won't play to your strengths. You need tactics games like Dawn of War (1st incarnation, not DoW2. DoW2 was a learning experience of what not to do). Also, an MMORPG for WH40K would also carry the franchise far and threaten other successful series like WoW, etc.
In my opinion, Dawn of War 1 was for RTS loyalists, and DoW2 was a hybrid between both RTS/strategy fans as well as table top fans, the second game has a way more potent blend because everything in the first felt very expendable, which just isn't "space mariney".
An MMO would be hard to pull off, I doubt it would be successful enough to draw in the current wh40k fanbase (pretty small) as well as other MMO fans. The best concept we are going to most likely get is Eternal Crusade.
http://www.eternalcrusade.com/
2: TV shows. Or even just official online shorts. Like how they do their RP's or for example the on-going campaigns (like Cadia?) except animate them for fans that can't buy ever piece of fluff and book out there. Even just animating a few key things like Draigo getting thrown into the Warp or Abbadon claiming Drach'nyen at the base of the Tower of Silence. Animation will carry this franchise far.
I still think a human planet with a PDF that focuses on the "human element" would be the best way to start, introduce lore and fluff from their, flesh out the weaker parts and create memorable characters. The hive city is the most interesting locations on human planets, considering their imperial use for "producing human resources and man power for the Imperial backbone".
3: MOVIE. MOVIE. OMG. MOVIE. With as visual and ADD/ADHD ridden as people are these days, a movie is the way to go. Which brings me to point 4
A tv series would be your best bet, a movie would be too short, and would most likely feel hollow.
Honestly, if I never heard of DoW, I would never have heard of the tabletop. My brother is the same way, and so are a couple friends of ours. Many of them would play the table top but it's too expensive and they don't have the time. They also like the lore, but they want to see it so they troll youtube for videos, as do I.
This is pretty much where I am at, loved the games, but the tabletop is too expensive which sums up all types of issues. For starters I need to go into the city to find a centralised hobby shop that is focused enough and has loyal customers that can afford the models. For me to make a group with locals, friends, university groups they would first need their own armies, which isn't going to happen.
When the models are so expensive they pretty much cut off an entire market with A LOT of free time (thinking holidays mainly).... STUDENTS.
Peregrine wrote: You're missing the point. Yes, 40k's Tolkien ripoffs have some superficial differences from the usual fantasy cliches, but they're superficial differences. Orks don't suddenly function differently in the story just because you give them guns (along with everyone else in the setting). You're still telling the same story as you would be in the fantasy setting, except with different visual elements.
I still fail to see WH40k in the same light as your generic definition, it equally combines both sci-fi elements and tolkein elements with it's own added components such as the Immaterium, Warp, Realm of Chaos and the such. It has enough familiar tropes and concepts such as races, but draws from other inspirations to develop races such as the Tau and others.
The problem with that is that 40k's characters, as a whole, aren't very memorable. You've got an endless series of "awesome chapter master X who killed A, B, C, D and saved planets blah, blah and blah" characters who exist for the sole purpose of letting the player project their own characteristics onto the leader of their army. Likewise, you don't really have very much interaction between them, just a list of battles to set up a tabletop scenario. That's fine for a tabletop game or a mindless action movie, but it's not going to make much else..
True, in that regard they've only needed to give the characters a "biography" so that they can sell with their own personal back story and the such for the tabletop game, a TV series could do this (create memorable characters) with credible writers on board, the video games have done this to varying degrees throughout the games, but it usually boils down to political relationships and connections.
But the claim was that 40k could make the kind of genre-defining movie that brings the IP to the level of mass appeal of something like Star Wars or LOTR. I'm sure that a 40k movie, done right, would have a good chance of making a profit, but that's not going to give you the next Star Wars.
I claimed a TV series that focused on the human element, such as poverty, xenophobia/paranoia, capitalism/heriarchies, hive worlds, criminals and the military would make a fantastic starting point for a TV series and introducing other factions and entities. Which it would, it's all about the execution and writing which is done differently in DIFFERENT mediums. The only reason that the lore is weak at times is because it doesn't need to be anything more for a tabletop games, the novels usually have "weak" writers I believe. I advocated AGAINST a movie....
They have multiple layers, but it's multiple bland layers. Yes, there's a detailed listing of all the battles they've fought, but "some of our guys were traitors and now we hunt them down" is far from original.
I find the cultures, personalities and societies of each race quite rich and interesting (as I said with Dark Angels and Eldar, I'm not going to type paragraphs explaining why but I can copy and paste wiki lore). I personally see a lot of creative potential that could be capitalised in different mediums, they did it with video games, they can do it with television.
Steelmage99 wrote: Lovable Renegade Rogue Trader and his interesting crew that you just grew to love, but are about to watch die meets New Alien Threat/New Tyranid Threat/New Necron Threat/Old Ancient Threat while exploring the outer regions of space on a Death World that has been scouted for his potential use as a Imperial Guard recruitment world.
Sure if you want to draw that conclusion, there would be thousands of differences that could be done in the show to differ it from firefly to the point that the similarities are A. They have a crew on a small vessle B. They have a vessle....
Warhammer 40k is a terrible game but a great hobby.
That's why it will never be a popular E-Sport or anything. People who like to play it like to play it because they have invested time into their models and their army and want to play with their units. Watching someone else play 40k, while not invested in the models, story, or characters etc is probably incredibly dull. It is also incredibly complicated.
I can watch someone play 40k and enjoy it because I am invested in the armies. Will these tyranids devour all of the Imperial Guard or will they bring enough guns to deal with it? Oh, looks like guard are getting eaten left and right, exciting! But to a normal person, it just looks like bug models touched up against human models, rolling dice, and the human models go away.
I think the best way to get 40k 'popular' is to get it into the lives of regular people and hook them like we all were. I think that if a really good TV show, movie, or popular video game did this, then people would become invested and like to see the actual original product more. I've tried making a few outlines for script ideas I'd like to develop on my own for the sake of doing it, but GW is probably incredibly strict and stingy with letting others tough their IP. Just my thoughts.
all about these characters once you remove their career from the equation.
