That should bring you up to speed about my opinion on 40k right now. Having not even reached a year into the hobby I think I am done with 40k. I started right at the end of 6th and getting 7th didnt seem like much to me at the time. I even remeber reading the amazing fluff and stories for each race and battle. I can still see myself as I found out what the Horus Heresy was and all the little stories of each primarch was (yes I was a big noob). But now GW has seemed to wreck 40k beyond repair. I mean really, unbound? Formations? I have no problems with these army list guidelines/configurations at all but when its abused, say having only riptides etc is whats going to happen and whos to stop people? Id like to think GW was thinking of having narratives with one player bringing everything he has in his pure AM army vs another players collection of SM in a fun, laid back enviorment to blow a couple hours and have someones collection pitted against another. Now yes you could not play with said people who abuse this system but when you and your friend are the only ones who dont play by the proper rules (not doing unbound) frankly investing a couple hundred dollars into the hobby just to play my friend over and over again is not my idea of warhammer. My Idea of warhammer is when 2 STRUCTURED (Force Org.) armies face eachother and see who comes out on top. Not throw the best and broken units together to win no matter what. Sure you can spam 3 riptides, have at it but when its 9, 10 and Ive even seen 11 riptides being fielded its just too ridiculous. Yes I want to win, but at the cost of 12 grav centurions all with tiggy? No. Sure you dont get Obj. secured but who cares when youve killed every unit your opponent has? But I dont know, what are your guy's thoughts or opinions?
Im not watching yet another "hitler freaks out" video, there are better ways to articulate.
Locally in the last 2 years I have watched the 40K environment wither to a point where there are less than 10 regular players. Even for Quarterly tournaments turnout is less than 16 people.
I will say this. Previously there were divisions in place by GW for the style of games people wanted to play. Combat patrol, full 40k and Apocalypse. Now 40k 7th edition is anything and everything. all of these players are in one big pool and thats where the problem starts. People are trying to create division of how they want to play but nobody agrees.
Dont want to run unlimited CAD/Allies? you're playing the game wrong.
Dont want to play against super heavies? you're a f**king coward.
Dont want to play against forge world? you're a waac piece s**t that doesnt want to "shake up the meta".
My only advice is carve out a local gaming group and be very up front about how everyone wants to play.
7-th has brought a relief to 40k. Our local club is seeing 4 new players in the last month and more are coming. While during the 6-th, half the guyz stopped playing and only those with tournament minmax lists were happy.
I don't get the hate towards unbound. Hasn't 6 allready been unbound with allies and detachments? With everyone just bringing a min troop tax to sit in the backfield.
Superheavies except for rare few like trans c'tan are reasonable and even underwhelming sometimes.
Maelstorm of war is a great thing. It actually inspires board controle and variety. You can't just sit back for the whole game blasting away your opponent and hope to win on the last turn. Or fly around with a single deathstar and hope to win a point game.
It's pretty hard to tell for me. I only started getting involved in 40K stuff as 7th was coming out, so I have no clue what the scene was like before. There are still plenty of tournaments going on and the local players seem pretty happy too.
40K already died years ago in my hometown in Hungary, even before 6th came out. I don't know about the rest of the country, but I suspect things are looking pretty grim. Most people have low salaries, which makes expensive hobbies impossible to pursue and last I checked, GW has no official presence in Hungary and aren't even willing to ship to retailers.
Normally, I'd be freaking out because of this, as I'll most likely be moving back there in a year or so, but luckily I have a few friends who are just starting the game. I won't be spoiled for choice with my opponents, but I don't mind much. Back when I started playing WHFB I played the same friend twice a month and we still had plenty of fun!
Who cares? Honestly, it seems people have freaked out over every edition of 40k, because somethings always wrong.
I like 7th. It aint perfect, but vehicles are more tanky as they should be and unbound allows for some fun games, especially if you are playing teams because you don't have to rely on having enough troops or going over your FA slots.
40k is well and alive in my LGS, due in part to Friday night fights and some tourneys, but also due to the interest of the players.
If you hate it, stop playing. There are plenty of other good games out there, don't waste people's time on another 40k doom and gloom thread.
I think 40k is dying in my area. Fantasy pretty much died with the last edition changed and shriveled to about 3 regular players relative to the then 40 or 50 regular 40k player. With this change in edition 40k is now shriveling. The main FLGS has been doing less restock because of it. "40k night" is slowly becoming inundated with gamers who would rather break out other miniature games, such that its almost just a generic miniature game night. There have been 40k nights where no one showed up to play 40k. There are no less than 10 regular 40k players.
The more I travel the more I realize just how bad off the game really is (at least in the U.S.). Many stores have dropped it altogether and replaced it with other games (X-Wing, Warmachine/Hordes, Dropzone Commander, Malifaux, etc). Those stores that do sell it are often handicapped by Games-Workshop itself due to the steadily increasing number of web-exclusives and delayed orders. Heck, even those stores that do sell it would often rather drop it for another game when you ask the owners. Add to that an aging player-base and a lack of fresh blood and you quickly find that many of the 40k groups that do exist are drying up.
Whatever your opinion though, Games Workshop has certainly done its best to earn itself a black mark to many an LGS and many players. They are losing the war of attrition.
From GW's financials it would certainly appear they're moving less product. Adjusted revenue is down almost 50% from a decade ago, with significantly higher prices, both in absolute and inflation-adjusted terms, while for the last few years revenue has been somewhat constant (with, again, increasing prices every year). The only explanation is simply that total sales volume is decreasing.
That's not surprising. Prices have risen out of pace with inflation, there is more competition and they have a much higher profile, while substitute products are likewise more readily available, while they've simultaneously tried to cut their retailers out of as much of the pie as they can and turned their website and publications from hobby sites loaded with lore and battle reports into poorly managed sales catalogs.
I wouldn't call it the "end of GW", but they're certainly not on a great track.
Maybe the tournament scene is suffering, but I couldn't care less about that. The local club has lots of games all the time with new players seem to be showing up frequently. For all the doom and gloom around the no FoC thing (which that crushingly witty video featured) I've seen a total of one unbound army across the table from me and I destroyed it with a battleforged army.
Nightwolf829 wrote: The more I travel the more I realize just how bad off the game really is (at least in the U.S.). Many stores have dropped it altogether and replaced it with other games (X-Wing, Warmachine/Hordes, Dropzone Commander, Malifaux, etc). Those stores that do sell it are often handicapped by Games-Workshop itself due to the steadily increasing number of web-exclusives and delayed orders. Heck, even those stores that do sell it would often rather drop it for another game when you ask the owners. Add to that an aging player-base and a lack of fresh blood and you quickly find that many of the 40k groups that do exist are drying up.
Whatever your opinion though, Games Workshop has certainly done its best to earn itself a black mark to many an LGS and many players. They are losing the war of attrition.
That's become a bit of a problem in my area. We have one game store (brick and mortar with online shop) within driving distance, which carries GW, had terrain made for 40k, LOTR and WHFB for players to freely use, regulary 40k/WHFB nights and regular tournaments. At first they weren't allowed to use official pictures from GW in their webstores, then they recieved no more prize-support for their events, then they had to cut down most of their GW lineup, as much of it went from retail, to direct order only. Now the only events that take place are FoW, Infinity and WMH, the owner started providing tables and terrain for 10/15 mm games and slowly, what was once a 90% GW environment with a few Magic players, changed into one where the GW systems almost ceased to exist. Only a few 40k games now and then, WHFB is almost dead.
While they still might be selling and making profits, it might not have been wise to treat independent stores the way they did.
With 7th we saw new players in our local gaming group, and for the first time we have enough people interested in a friendly local tournament. So, no, nothing dying here, rather flourishing.
Dying is subjective, but IMHO40k (and GW in general) are on the decline. I live in an area with 4 game stores within a 40 mile radius (could even be more than that). Only one (albeit the largest one) has 40k going on regularly, at the others its nonexistent largely because people have left GW for other, better written and supported (talking about community interaction) games. And of course all of those are a drop in the bucket to the MtG crowd which is the real thing those stores cater to.
I think that GW's unwillingness to adapt and react to the market is declining 40k as they keep trying to push their vision of the game (which incidentally is also the most profitable) on everyone regardless and refuse to balance the game, write concise rules or stop believing the lie that they sell models and not a game.
For me personally I would play the game if the rules were clear and the models didn't cost an arm and a leg for a minuscule amount of points in-game, but since they don't do that I choose not to play even though I know I have a community.
I am fine with 40k. However, people in my community is switching to fantasy recently due to the release of Nagash. Once the excitement with the great Necromancer is done, I hope to see more Warhammer 40k in store.
I play weekly at a club with maybe 15 regulars, 30-40 irregulars, with at least one new face almost every week.
I've never seen a super heavy fielded outside of apoc games. The players with competitive lists are all very up front about them. A couple people (myself included, I'm too much of an engineer to not be ensnared by the Mechanicus) play FW, and the rule is ask first and bring an extra copy of any rules for your opponent to have for reference. Never been an issue.
jreilly89 wrote: don't waste people's time on another 40k doom and gloom thread.
What a strange statement to make.
Is your willpower so incredibly weak that you feel compelled to enter and read every single thread that pops up on the forum, thus resulting in a waste of your time when threads that you don't like pop up?
Using the advice that you gave to the OP about the game, shouldn't people who dislike threads like this simply... not go into them?
This type of question will never have a definite answer - what does "dying" even mean in this context?
All you'll get in the way of answers is anecdotes, which are totally worthless from a statistical point of view (doesn't mean they can't be interesting to read though).
40k might not do as well as it used to, but obviously it still sells, and people still play it. In some areas people may have shifted to other systems, which isn't that strange given the amount of interesting and fun games available during this period of wargaming history.
I'd like to see a breakdown by country how people think GW is doing. It seems the Americans view Gw as more on a decline that the British, but this is too small a group to get accurate information.
Either way, GW's financial reports show that they are selling less product. In some areas it may be doing better, but overall the average is that it's losing customers.
My local (re-opened) FLGS is phasing out GW and growing more of the other games like WM/H, Infinity, Relic Knights, DZC, etc.
I can't say that it's dying, but it's continuing to lose hit points.
Acephale wrote: This type of question will never have a definite answer - what does "dying" even mean in this context?
Drastically falling sales is probably a good indicator.
Either less people are interested in the game or the people who are still interested are less so.
When the market around you is growing and you're shrinking, you're dying.
7th edition is fantastic providing you're not No need for this part. Please don't insult other users like this. reds8n
"Hey I'm looking for more of a casual game, are those the only models you brought today?" and then play someone else or suck it up and courteously ask them to bring a battle forged/fluffier unbound list next week.
Maelstrom is amazing. I've seen some pretty fun themed unbound lists, especially for armies that suffer at low-ish points. All 7th edition has changed from 6th is a slight revision (streamlining in my opinion) of the basic rules and the options to play in a ton of different "game modes."
40k is the Austria-Hungary of the gaming world: the decaying power that fails to incorporate its heavily-fragmented interior in an efficient way that could satisy everyone, that shocks the entire world by its mere existence year after year.
So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Try again buddy.
OT, I think 40K is dying because GW is. The financial reports show as much.
I don't know how it is around the world, but at least here a lot of people left either to play other systems or because places where they played got closed. There is also a lot of people who have armies, but no longer play anymore. There is a limited number of games you want to play against eldar in non tournament settings.
I find my real life experience of 40k is radically different to what I read online. There are a couple of people who are donkey-caves, and a couple of people with bad social/hygiene skills, but by and large the people are cool. There are dozens in our group, and there's always someone available and willing to play games of any sizes. The shop is cool. People don't make abusive lists, because they realise it's a game and people want to have fun. I don't understand why you guys have such a bad experience?
Well, the first thing to understand is that people will have as many varying experiences as there are people in the hobby. Some of the experiences are a result of the opponent bringing something negative, and other times it could be the fault of the person complaining about the game, or a combination thereof.
The second thing is that even though people can have a fun game of 40k with friends, some people are enjoying it despite the rules, rather than because of them. As far as games I've played, 40k is the clunkiest, most complex, least tactical and strategic, worst balanced, and most expensive, which means the games I'm playing are because I enjoy the fluff, models, aesthetics, and spending time with my friends. However, I could spend that same time with someone playing a different game that is better in nearly aspect a wargame could be measured by, barring subjective things like fluff and aesthetics. It then raises the question of why I'm even playing 40k when other games are offering a better gaming experience.
While it isn't universal, and I don't speak for anyone but myself, I think its safe to say not everyone is necessarily having a bad experience, but it'd be a stretch to say 40k is a game that naturally creates a positive gaming environment. Between the balance, cost, and rules complexity, you'll find a bigger spectrum of how people wish to play the game. A game like Firestorm Armada for example, has much simpler, cleaner rules with little to no room for interpretation, and the balance is better, meaning less of my game time is spent going over rules, or being frustrated about balance issues or broken combinations.
To tie it back into the OP, 40k certainly isn't on its best leg. The last financials weren't great, to put it lightly, and the next one will tell us if the trend is continuing. The market has only grown, and other companies are eating up the expanding market share, leaving 40k to stagnate. There's not a lot to entice new players into 40k, when other games are a fraction of the cost and easier to learn. Growing communities outside of 40k mean more people are getting introduced to wargaming through other systems, which used to be GW's big selling point. Once the ubiquity of 40k teeters off, there isn't a whole lot to keep it going.
I don't think its dying yet, but I don't think its far off from that either.
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Try again buddy.
OT, I think 40K is dying because GW is. The financial reports show as much.
Did you just stop reading my post after the first half of a sentence?
All of those things are easy to mitigate based on a short conversation.
I remember when Halo was released and I played it for the first time, my buddy set it to legendary mode and I hated it so I asked to play down a little bit and loved the game on normal. Ask your opponents to chill out a bit or find different people to play. If that doesn't work, stop playing. Nobody cares.
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Maybe not a subhuman CHUD, but it does make you close minded and conservative.
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Try again buddy.
OT, I think 40K is dying because GW is. The financial reports show as much.
Did you just stop reading my post after the first half of a sentence?
All of those things are easy to mitigate based on a short conversation.
I remember when Halo was released and I played it for the first time, my buddy set it to legendary mode and I hated it so I asked to play down a little bit and loved the game on normal. Ask your opponents to chill out a bit or find different people to play. If that doesn't work, stop playing. Nobody cares.
A, the wonderful sound of a fresh-faced player who is utterly convinced that the only reason people would stop playing 40k is because they are sub-human. They ignore the fact that people may take issues with completely different elements of the game (my Guard player friend was thrilled by 6th ed. My Tyranids were not.), making negotiations frustrating. Other games must simply appeal to anti-social basement dwellers, and not simpoly remove the agravation of having to horse-trade every time you face a new opponent.
I look forewards to Dakka Slowly crushing your soul. (Mwahahahahahaha )
@OP: 40k is a good vehicle for campaigns with a GM outlining battle-specific restrictions on army lists. If you are able to think of and play 40k in this way, it might be funner for you. You could consider finding a third member of your inner circle, and swap who GMs what campaigns. These kind of things also attract players at hobby shops, because alot of people are in the same boat as you are, but do want to play with their 40k stuff.
I have to say, I personally took a break from 40k in 6th Ed because I hated it so much, but I am returning to it because 7th seems to have fixed some things, as well as my undying need for 40k fluff discussions, lol. It seems to be a rather solid force at my flgs. Ya, some people would quit or switch to other games, but there always still seemed to be a healthy player base. Sadly, I can't say the same for fantasy.
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Try again buddy.
OT, I think 40K is dying because GW is. The financial reports show as much.
Did you just stop reading my post after the first half of a sentence?
All of those things are easy to mitigate based on a short conversation.
I remember when Halo was released and I played it for the first time, my buddy set it to legendary mode and I hated it so I asked to play down a little bit and loved the game on normal. Ask your opponents to chill out a bit or find different people to play. If that doesn't work, stop playing. Nobody cares.
A, the wonderful sound of a fresh-faced player who is utterly convinced that the only reason people would stop playing 40k is because they are sub-human. They ignore the fact that people may take issues with completely different elements of the game (my Guard player friend was thrilled by 6th ed. My Tyranids were not.), making negotiations frustrating. Other games must simply appeal to anti-social basement dwellers, and not simpoly remove the agravation of having to horse-trade every time you face a new opponent.
I look forewards to Dakka Slowly crushing your soul. (Mwahahahahahaha )
So weird that Dakka users assume that one's participation on this forum is the be all and end all of their wargaming experience.
Anytime I've said something contrary to the "I hate 40k but still play it let's complain" circlejerk I've been ignored and rebuffed as a new player when actually, I've been modelling/playing for a decade now.
At any rate, the length of time I've been posting on this form is irrelevant to the topic at hand. If you could address what I actually wrote in my post that would be great.
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Maybe not a subhuman CHUD, but it does make you close minded and conservative.
Not true either. Many of us are quite open minded seeing as we play and experiment with other games. Just because we don't find 7th ed rules fun, doesn't mean we're closed minded and conservative. Different people have different ideas of fun. For us, we find good rules and balanced armies to be fun.
jasper76 wrote: @OP: 40k is a good vehicle for campaigns with a GM outlining battle-specific restrictions on army lists. If you are able to think of and play 40k in this way, it might be funner for you. You could consider finding a third member of your inner circle, and swap who GMs what campaigns. These kind of things also attract players at hobby shops, because alot of people are in the same boat as you are, but do want to play with their 40k stuff.
Campaigns are far and away my favourite way to play this game. Modified rulesets that give you bonuses based on previous wins/losses can help mitigate or facilitate someone wanting to bring a more powerful.
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Try again buddy.
OT, I think 40K is dying because GW is. The financial reports show as much.
Did you just stop reading my post after the first half of a sentence?
All of those things are easy to mitigate based on a short conversation.
I remember when Halo was released and I played it for the first time, my buddy set it to legendary mode and I hated it so I asked to play down a little bit and loved the game on normal. Ask your opponents to chill out a bit or find different people to play. If that doesn't work, stop playing. Nobody cares.
A, the wonderful sound of a fresh-faced player who is utterly convinced that the only reason people would stop playing 40k is because they are sub-human. They ignore the fact that people may take issues with completely different elements of the game (my Guard player friend was thrilled by 6th ed. My Tyranids were not.), making negotiations frustrating. Other games must simply appeal to anti-social basement dwellers, and not simpoly remove the agravation of having to horse-trade every time you face a new opponent.
I look forewards to Dakka Slowly crushing your soul. (Mwahahahahahaha )
So weird that Dakka users assume that one's participation on this forum is the be all and end all of their wargaming experience.
Anytime I've said something contrary to the "I hate 40k but still play it let's complain" circlejerk I've been ignored and rebuffed as a new player when actually, I've been modelling/playing for a decade now.
At any rate, the length of time I've been posting on this form is irrelevant to the topic at hand. If you could address what I actually wrote in my post that would be great.
Why bother responding when you obviously think the other side is ______. That's not exactly conducive to a rational conversation. Maybe he assumed you were a new player because you acted like a child?
Basically, don't insult people and you might get more helpful responses.
jreilly89 wrote: don't waste people's time on another 40k doom and gloom thread.
What a strange statement to make.
Is your willpower so incredibly weak that you feel compelled to enter and read every single thread that pops up on the forum, thus resulting in a waste of your time when threads that you don't like pop up?
Using the advice that you gave to the OP about the game, shouldn't people who dislike threads like this simply... not go into them?
Title is misleading. Its phrased as a question, but OP seems to already have made up his mind. Had it been "40k is dead and stupid and I hate it", I probably wouldn't have clicked on it
jreilly89 wrote: don't waste people's time on another 40k doom and gloom thread.
What a strange statement to make.
Is your willpower so incredibly weak that you feel compelled to enter and read every single thread that pops up on the forum, thus resulting in a waste of your time when threads that you don't like pop up?
Using the advice that you gave to the OP about the game, shouldn't people who dislike threads like this simply... not go into them?
Title is misleading. Its phrased as a question, but OP seems to already have made up his mind. Had it been "40k is dead and stupid and I hate it", I probably wouldn't have clicked on it
I think its a valid discussion. The OP shared his opinion and new we get to share ours. Nothing misleading in that. (I wish it came with a poll though. I think it would still be that the majority here on Dakka would think that 40k isn't dying.)
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Maybe not a subhuman CHUD, but it does make you close minded and conservative.
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Try again buddy.
OT, I think 40K is dying because GW is. The financial reports show as much.
Did you just stop reading my post after the first half of a sentence?
All of those things are easy to mitigate based on a short conversation.
I remember when Halo was released and I played it for the first time, my buddy set it to legendary mode and I hated it so I asked to play down a little bit and loved the game on normal. Ask your opponents to chill out a bit or find different people to play. If that doesn't work, stop playing. Nobody cares.
A, the wonderful sound of a fresh-faced player who is utterly convinced that the only reason people would stop playing 40k is because they are sub-human. They ignore the fact that people may take issues with completely different elements of the game (my Guard player friend was thrilled by 6th ed. My Tyranids were not.), making negotiations frustrating. Other games must simply appeal to anti-social basement dwellers, and not simpoly remove the agravation of having to horse-trade every time you face a new opponent.
I look forewards to Dakka Slowly crushing your soul. (Mwahahahahahaha )
So weird that Dakka users assume that one's participation on this forum is the be all and end all of their wargaming experience.
Anytime I've said something contrary to the "I hate 40k but still play it let's complain" circlejerk I've been ignored and rebuffed as a new player when actually, I've been modelling/playing for a decade now.
At any rate, the length of time I've been posting on this form is irrelevant to the topic at hand. If you could address what I actually wrote in my post that would be great.
Why bother responding when you obviously think the other side is ______. That's not exactly conducive to a rational conversation. Maybe he assumed you were a new player because you acted like a child?
Basically, don't insult people and you might get more helpful responses.
Alright, I agree the insult was crass and uncalled for.
I still fail to see what part of current 40k that someone dislikes can't be resolved by basic communication with your opponent either before you play or after your game to arrange for a more enjoyable rematch. I'd just like to know if there's something I'm not seeing in regards to that.
I have the privilege of playing with a pretty close and understanding gaming group most of my time but whenever I've played a pick up game with someone there has always been a "what kind of game are you looking for" prelude to actually playing. Is this not feasible for everyone?
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Maybe not a subhuman CHUD, but it does make you close minded and conservative.
Not true either. Many of us are quite open minded seeing as we play and experiment with other games. Just because we don't find 7th ed rules fun, doesn't mean we're closed minded and conservative. Different people have different ideas of fun. For us, we find good rules and balanced armies to be fun.
Fair enough, then you are a person who dislikes change, or at the very least dis-likes the specific changes 7th edition brought. Not sure what can be done for you? Complaining to the internet will NOT increase your love of the game or GW and will actually do more to reinforce your negative position. You reap what you sew.
liquidjoshi wrote: So simply not liking 7th's ruleset because of various reasons (unbound removing any notion of balance, a psychic phase which one of my armies has no chance to participate in, dubling down on 6ths flaws, etc) makes me a "subhuman chud"?
Maybe not a subhuman CHUD, but it does make you close minded and conservative.
Not true either. Many of us are quite open minded seeing as we play and experiment with other games. Just because we don't find 7th ed rules fun, doesn't mean we're closed minded and conservative. Different people have different ideas of fun. For us, we find good rules and balanced armies to be fun.
Fair enough, then you are a person who dislikes change, or at the very least dis-likes the specific changes 7th edition brought. Not sure what can be done for you? Complaining to the internet will NOT increase your love of the game or GW and will actually do more to reinforce your negative position. You reap what you sew.
Simple, I don't play 40k anymore because I thought the changes made the game an un-enjoyable mess for me. If the rules had been what I thought were improvements, I would have gladly continued on.
Edit. As for the Pick Up Game problem. Yes, conversation is necessary, but sometimes it needs too much of it and sometimes there are no fixes. "Oh, you brought Eldar WS spam? I got nothing to go against that. I have my fluffy 1kSons army." So, either you play a horribly one sided game or you find another opponent. Sometimes there isn't another opponent.
5th saw 40-60 people tourneys. Late 6th up to now they are lucky if they can get 12. Thats how bad its become.
I dont want to play with the compartmentalization that the game has brought. Before you needed things to kill vehicles, MCs, and infantry. Now you need to deal with LOW, Fliers, and fmcs in addition. Also you have shooting MCs with 2+ saves, so things like plasma aren't effective. Then things like titan spam that just invalidate anything but the most anti-vehicle lists. The number of checkboxes that you have to tick to make a list is just growing longer and longer and leading to more min-maxing to the point units that ARE good just become invalid due to not checking that box.
Throw that in with the dumbing-down of codexes and making them far less interesting than they were before makes me not want to play those armies. My nid army remained boxed after the 2nd half of 6th and has never come out since. I dont want to play skyblight or nothing, i want to play my own list choice.
I still fail to see what part of current 40k that someone dislikes can't be resolved by basic communication with your opponent either before you play or after your game to arrange for a more enjoyable rematch. I'd just like to know if there's something I'm not seeing in regards to that.
I have the privilege of playing with a pretty close and understanding gaming group most of my time but whenever I've played a pick up game with someone there has always been a "what kind of game are you looking for" prelude to actually playing. Is this not feasible for everyone?
I explained in my post earlier, that some people will be having fun despite the game. As in, the game of 40k, with its rules, balance issues and other factors, does not itself create a positive gaming environment through its own merits, but mostly on those of the people playing.
Other games create a positive environment by being easier to learn, having better balance, and are more enticing to new players, which encourages a healthy, growing community and other players can branch out cheaper, which can encourage more variety as well. On top of that, you can then factor in the people who could make the experience all the better.
While the pre-game negotiation can solve a lot of problems, it really shouldn't be necessary, especially with all the variable you'd have to go over for a standard 7th ed game to be on the same page, and it also doesn't factor in that this negotiation could end in both players deciding not to play eachother.
Point is, no one should have to walk on egg shells or worry about what kind of list they're bringing in a game. Ideally, and especially given the price of the rules, I should be able to walk in to a store, find an open table and someone looking for a game and agree on a points level before playing.
I admit that I am not the biggest fan of GW, but I do try to be impartial in my opinion on their state of business and such.
Some stores I've visited in the past few years have remained at their previous levels of 40k, but then the amount the game was played there was never very high. Stores that I've visited that had a lot of 40k going on have seen substantial downturns...the main place I still see 40k being played in respectable numbers is the GW B&M stores.
I think this has less to do with the rules and more to do with the sheer cost of getting into the game. Rules alone set you back at least $130, and for that you're not getting a single miniature. The size of armies at specific point values (i.e. 1000pts, 1500pts) has also increased significantly through the last few editions as unit points have been compressed. What you get is a game that has tremendous start-up costs, and it is very discouraging for new players to join.
And this is something I find quite sad- 40k is being pushed further into obscurity when it was something that was previously becoming more commonplace (e.g. a couple of celebrities admitted to dabbling in 40k, I once met a Carolina Panthers player at a game store). I fear that, with the way things are going, 40k will become a wargame for the grandfathered-in or the wealthy, which paints an image of a bunch of superior-minded players looking down on the unwashed masses playing other wargames. That is a sad future if you ask me.
Acephale wrote: This type of question will never have a definite answer - what does "dying" even mean in this context?
Drastically falling sales is probably a good indicator.
Either less people are interested in the game or the people who are still interested are less so.
When the market around you is growing and you're shrinking, you're dying.
Not necessarily, no.
Dying = ceasing to exist.
Shrinking = growing smaller.
So yeah, 40k is probably shrinking, as is GW's hegemony on the wargaming scene in general. I for one think this is great since it means that other systems are getting more popular, and having the option to chose between several good game systems/model ranges benefits me as a hobbyist.
Still, this doesn't mean 40k will cease to exist (well, eventually it will, just like everything else - in that sense it's surely dying, but then again aren't we all?). It will still be played by several people for a long time - probably never enjoying the popularity of its glory days but still played and appreciated for what it is.
The hobbit is "dead", even though it has a solid rule set and fare stats.
40k is not exactly "dead" when you compare both. It still has an okay fan base is some areas. While the hobbit dosent.
The rules, I will agree are dead!
I'm not a fan of games workshop (to put it mildly), their price hikes, ways they try to get extra money out of you (by not including all options), the way they have completely invlidated some peoples armies by getting rid of characters and units that they can't be bothered to make units for etc...
Having said that, I think 7th has brought so many advantages.
-Maelstrom is far more tactical and prevents gunlines to an extent.
-It evened out the power of MCs compared to walkers, with smash nerf, area terrain gone, fmcs spending a turn between flight modes etc.
-It bought a more tactical choice with the new jink rules.
-Psychic phase means ld10 psykers aren't almost always auto passing everything and gives you a chance to cancel buffs.
-They have tried to stop the codex creep and have tried to strengthen weak dexes with supplements; cypher, hellbrutes, IA:13 for csm, formations for nids and orks.
-Forgeworld are creating units to help challenge the imbalanced units (obvious example being the sicaran to combat serps - although this was in 6th).
-All the recent dex releases seem very balanced against each other.
I've sold off most of my 40k stuff, and still want to get rid of the rest. As far as I'm concerned, 40k (the game) is dead and buried in an unmarked grave somewhere. The lore is still amazing. Just the game is toast. GW has blatantly stated time and again that the game only exists because people want a game to use their models for, as well as not caring about making a well constructed game. These are in their company preambles-it's in the public domain. So, yes, it's dying, and there is plenty of proof that it is going downhill. Is it a year from death? 5 years? 50? Yes. Who knows when, depends how long they can keep going, but it is spiraling downwards.
Yeah, it is true all you said that everyone and their mother can now spamvgrav centurions, riptides and dreadknights thankfully no sane tournament organizer will allow unbound. Also, 7th fixed the allies matrix pretty well. As you said you can always refuse to play against such lists. I wouldn't say it is dying tho.
I am the author of that video and pretty happy to see someone referencing it and making a thread
40k is primarily dying because the game has been bloated due to GW focusing too much on paper publications than actual models and a tight ruleset.
7th edition is in fact the first, real, "house rule edition" where more than at any point before (at least since 3rd ed) you are likely to agree with your opponent in stuff that you dont want to field, like multiple CADs, allies, flyers, non-ICLoWs, etc.
GW tried to "balance" the numerous, but ultimately limited deathstar builds of 6th by basically allowing for unlimited shenanigans now (like allies being able to use each others transports, FA drop pods etc.) so no deathstar will really come out on top because there'll always be a hard counter for it. Good job, GW. By doing so they completely wrecked the competetive tourney scene and you can see this as the tourneys today are a far cry of how populated they used to be in the mid and late '00s.
And then you have GW's whole supplement policy. Some hardback, some digital dataslate, and then formations (GW's newest strategy to increase kit sales by making people buy more of the same stuff just to be rewarded with a special rule). A clear cash-grab example of this is the new Helbrute formation - field 3 and you can deepstrike them. Wow. Of course. Multi-melta Helbrutes fresh out the Dark Vengeance box were lame. So you either pay more money and buy the actual kit from GW, allowing you to kit it out with better weapons, or field 3 and you can DS them.
And then you have the codexes (as well as the BRB) focusing more and more on showing big, glossy pictures of GW's citadel range rather than dedicating pages to artwork and fluff.
GW somehow tries to argue against this by saying that their newer codexes contain 40+ pages of background while their older 6th edition dexes only contained 25 pages of background, but you must remember that the unit description bestiarum section was where a good deal of additional fluff lay, one that is far more abridged in the newer codexes due to the increased size of the photos that have replaced the unit artworks. And then you have the removal of any and all characters and units that didnt have models for them due to the Chapterhouse lawsuit, so of course there's more room in the newer codexes for a bigger background section.
Also, GW often dedicated more than half a page for a single soldier artwork, and this process is repeated 3 to 4 times in the Dark Eldar codex just with a different coat of paint for each Kabalite Warrior. Lots of white space wasted in the background section.
And last but not least you have more competition in the miniatures market - back in the mod 00s, GW was the only real deal. Now, Malifaux, Infinity, Warmachine, Warmahordes, Privateer Press, Victoria Miniatures and countless others have their own great rulesets and game styles, making the rather clunky looking GW citadel range seem outdated.
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Poly Ranger wrote: I'm not a fan of games workshop (to put it mildly), their price hikes, ways they try to get extra money out of you (by not including all options), the way they have completely invlidated some peoples armies by getting rid of characters and units that they can't be bothered to make units for etc...
Having said that, I think 7th has brought so many advantages.
-Maelstrom is far more tactical and prevents gunlines to an extent.
-It evened out the power of MCs compared to walkers, with smash nerf, area terrain gone, fmcs spending a turn between flight modes etc.
-It bought a more tactical choice with the new jink rules.
-Psychic phase means ld10 psykers aren't almost always auto passing everything and gives you a chance to cancel buffs.
-They have tried to stop the codex creep and have tried to strengthen weak dexes with supplements; cypher, hellbrutes, IA:13 for csm, formations for nids and orks.
-Forgeworld are creating units to help challenge the imbalanced units (obvious example being the sicaran to combat serps - although this was in 6th).
-All the recent dex releases seem very balanced against each other.
- Maelstrom only makes the current top tier army (Eldar) even more powerful.
- The only army really relying on MCs was Tyranids. And they already sucked in 6th - now they're worse. Of course, Dreads are better in CC vs the big bugs now, but still.
- True, but now skimmer DTs with jink are even more survivable - and the skimmer DT we all hate is the Wave Serpent
- psykers were never overpowered. now the rules are just even more bloated. and besides, armies fielding only 1 overpowered psyker are now doing even better because excess warp charges coming from rolling the D6 (in addition to the ML dice of your psyker) means the entire pool is his to use
- which once again means even more rules that arent found in any codex you can pick up at your GW store
- fair point
-Maelstrom stops the boring sit back and shoot that 6th edition had the problem of. It makes it actually tactical during the course of a game rather than last turn objective grab.
-Deamons/wraithknights/avatars/riptides - whether relied upon or not have now been slightly brought down to scale. Of course if an army relied on them, it would be a problem.
-I still believe wave serpents ridiculously overpowered, however gaining just +1 to the save from last edition definitely does not make up for having to snap fire.
-End of 6th mass divination in guard armies. Divination just in general. Also huge amount of eldar psychic buffs and debuffs most of which couldn't be countered.
-I personally have no problem with there being extra rules, as I don't own every single main codex, so I'm not going to always have access to all the rules anyway.
You aren't reacting to the player across from you, you're reacting to a random card drawn, of potentially wildly differing difficulties of achieving them, if at all, which is followed by a random dice roll to determine the number of VP on some of them.
If you're playing Maelstrom exactly by the book, you might as well just roll a D6 at the beginning of the game to determine who wins.
Lord Castellan wrote: 40k is the Austria-Hungary of the gaming world: the decaying power that fails to incorporate its heavily-fragmented interior in an efficient way that could satisy everyone, that shocks the entire world by its mere existence year after year.
You aren't reacting to the player across from you, you're reacting to a random card drawn, of potentially wildly differing difficulties of achieving them, if at all, which is followed by a random dice roll to determine the number of VP on some of them.
If you're playing Maelstrom exactly by the book, you might as well just roll a D6 at the beginning of the game to determine who wins.
Modifying Maelstrom makes for a much more dynamic game. Random VPs is unacceptable and should be thrown out by any competitive scene. Of course your turn based objectives are random, but then the missions you roll up at the start of the game are also random along with deployment. Playing with Maelstrom missions just makes for a far more interesting gaming experience as opposed to 6th editions 'let's wait for turn 5 and jump on objectives when the music stops' musical chairs. And when your Maelstrom cards are known to both players it does allow you a sense of playing against the opponent also.
I think GW's made the game less accessible. You can't get all the game's models in stores and the rules are on the verge of requiring a GM or someone outside the 2 players to establish how the game will be played. The do anything and everything rule set demands someone establish structure to game play. I'd guess the areas where the game continues to thrive are those where the local gaming community has people who are helping organize game play and the areas where the game is failing just aren't as fortunate.
dakkajet wrote: The hobbit is "dead", even though it has a solid rule set and fare stats.
40k is not exactly "dead" when you compare both. It still has an okay fan base is some areas. While the hobbit dosent.
The rules, I will agree are dead!
Could you elaborate why the rules are dead?
In our group, 40k is still vital. We had an internal tourney with 8 players recently.
Moreover, we organize an Apoc battle each month. There are 6 to 8 players who participate normally.
However, player are buying less 40k items atm due to prices.
Fantasy is absolutely dead. Players wait for the new edition to start again.
WM/H got a boost. Almost everybody in our group has started a PP army.
10 years ago the LotR boom began to end. GW found that their strategy, whatever it was, had failed. Sales dropped off rapidly and fixed costs were so high they actually made a loss.
A new strategy was adopted. Focus on core games, don't 'fix' the rules but keep changing them, cut costs by reducing shop staff, tournaments and so on, and increase prices rapidly.
This proved unpopular with veterans. There was much complaint which of course was often dismissed then as now by comments that people always moan about whatever GW does.
More importantly though, sales remained broadly flat, showing that people were buying fewer items at higher prices. Profit was good because the cost cutting worked.
GW decided that the price increase strategy could be applied to rulebooks too. They doubled the price of a codex and introduced supplements that were only semi-optional. Sales fell off a cliff. Model sales followed, as there is no point buying new models if you don't have the rules. GW's reaction was to double down on this strategy by issuing 7th edition and splitting the rules up even further so that to have all the rules for your army you need to buy about five different codexes, dataslates and what not, all costing more than the complete codex would have cost a few years go.
The strategy appears to be that the remaining customers who like GW will buy lots more stuff at higher prices, and the moaners can go away.
This may work. If you lose half your customers, but the ones who stay with you will pay triple the money than before, then actually sales will go up.
Kilkrazy wrote: 10 years ago the LotR boom began to end. GW found that their strategy, whatever it was, had failed. Sales dropped off rapidly and fixed costs were so high they actually made a loss.
A new strategy was adopted. Focus on core games, don't 'fix' the rules but keep changing them, cut costs by reducing shop staff, tournaments and so on, and increase prices rapidly.
This proved unpopular with veterans. There was much complaint which of course was often dismissed then as now by comments that people always moan about whatever GW does.
More importantly though, sales remained broadly flat, showing that people were buying fewer items at higher prices. Profit was good because the cost cutting worked.
GW decided that the price increase strategy could be applied to rulebooks too. They doubled the price of a codex and introduced supplements that were only semi-optional. Sales fell off a cliff. Model sales followed, as there is no point buying new models if you don't have the rules. GW's reaction was to double down on this strategy by issuing 7th edition and splitting the rules up even further so that to have all the rules for your army you need to buy about five different codexes, dataslates and what not, all costing more than the complete codex would have cost a few years go.
The strategy appears to be that the remaining customers who like GW will buy lots more stuff at higher prices, and the moaners can go away.
This may work. If you lose half your customers, but the ones who stay with you will pay triple the money than before, then actually sales will go up.
We shall see in the next financial statement.
TL;DR version... for about 10 years GW have been implementing a strategy of making the most amount of money from the least amount of customers
ThatSwellFella wrote: Yeah, it is true all you said that everyone and their mother can now spamvgrav centurions, riptides and dreadknights thankfully no sane tournament organizer will allow unbound. Also, 7th fixed the allies matrix pretty well. As you said you can always refuse to play against such lists. I wouldn't say it is dying tho.
How did it fix stuff? It buffed imperials who got more battle brothers, nerfed tau/eldar ,kept the same ++2 re-roll inv for eldar/deldar baron lists. I don't play tau, but I wouldn't call nerfing one army, which wasn't even the best army in 6th, balancing.
Playing with Maelstrom missions just makes for a far more interesting gaming experience as opposed to 6th editions 'let's wait for turn 5 and jump on objectives when the music stops' musical chairs.
realy? the I drive or drop with my MSU on objectives turn one hoping you have drawn 3 missions you can do and your opponent didn't is more fun? Specialy for armies who don't have cheap and fast and resilient MSU?
I think it is due to GW being under the same company for so long with only 2 major games. This also means it has a large amount of former players. You look at most games like 40k they go belly up after a few years and get restarted by a new company or changed completely.
Like Mechwarrior that has changed hands a lot.
But GW has managed to keep the game alive for so long under the same company, thus profit generated sales equals company that does not go with the run by gamers banner. Yes run by gamers companies are generally cheaper and slimmer to the point rules. But GW has never sold out or restarted they became a major power in gaming. All model based games are compared to GW because they are the bar in the industry. But with that said they have very complex or open rules because they have been making rules for the game system for so long. And TO's almost always make modifications to those rules thus is the open part of the rules.
Just wanted to make sure these videos didn't get passed up. They're very interesting.
I'd say that GW is more like the Roman Empire at the end. No one thought it would fall even though there was evidence all around, Rome being sacked, barbarianism of the legions, loss of Britain, most of Gual and then North Africa, etc. (Okay, a few did.)
It was a giant bloated mess that kept going on its own inertia. Everyone just assumed it would keep going until within the space of a few decades it fell and fell hard.
And having a large player base doesn't mean its not falling. You're saying it hasn't fell. True. But it is in the process of falling as evidenced by retailers turning their back and the dramatic decline of revenue.
The video guy is just bitter, because he had several shops and had to close them, when people stoped buying stuff in his stores. The fact that it was GW stoping him from selling them is IMO not that important.
Makumba wrote: Yeah, it is true all you said that everyone and their mother can now spamvgrav centurions, riptides and dreadknights thankfully no sane tournament organizer will allow unbound. Also, 7th fixed the allies matrix pretty well. As you said you can always refuse to play against such lists. I wouldn't say it is dying tho.
How did it fix stuff? It buffed imperials who got more battle brothers, nerfed tau/eldar ,kept the same ++2 re-roll inv for eldar/deldar baron lists. I don't play tau, but I wouldn't call nerfing one army, which wasn't even the best army in 6th, balancing.
Awesome and pin point deep striking is in. Seer star with serpents is still alive. But you are right eldar lost 2 out of 3 top tier that let them dominante, now the poor schmucks are left with only one,they still had 2 out of 3 from 6th for a long time. But now that has ended . Oh what ever will they do now.
He is bitter, because his shops went down. I have no knowladge of trading market and no one has to tell me that, if you get good at out sourcing someone else stuff, sooner or later the main company will do everything to take it away from you.
"I think", a phrase that would greatly aid your social discourse
In other words, you can't objectively state that he is bitter because you have no way of knowing. You can think, and you can assume. But that's all it is, an assumption.
MWHistorian wrote: But it is in the process of falling as evidenced by retailers turning their back and the dramatic decline of revenue.
Firstly, the decline of revenue isn´t really dramatic in the scale GW is at. Secondly, for all the retailers that "turned their backs" that you know, how many do you think exist that haven´t done so and make most of their profits from GW products? I´d say the "back turners" are in the vast minority.
And again, all companies have good and bad years and it doesn´t mean anything in the end necessarily, even if the revenue continues to decline over multiple years. This happens all the time to companies around the world, companies that continously increase revenue and profit for the entire duration of their existence are rare. And the profits of a company haven´t got much to do with one of their games being alive/dead. Even if GW got downsized to the size of Privateer Press ( around 10 times smaller, which in itself is a stretch ) things still keep going. And were that to happen, so what? PP is doing fine in their current size, so will any other company. Downsizing doesn´t mean going under ( should GW even downsize ) and anyone who can´t realize that must really be oblivious to the realities of the business world. A GW having the revenue equal to their competitors ( instead of 10 times larger ) is not the end of the world, and like I said before it´s unlikely even that happens. It could be a good thing too, maybe they´d have to think about their strategies harder.
There is no process of 40K falling necessarily, there is just a company that has suffered some loss of revenue in a market where there´s more competition now than ever before, which partially makes the forementioned self explanatory.
Not buying doesn´t equal less gaming activity, downsizing doesn´t equal going under, revenue and profits doesn´t equal loss of playerbase. And in the end, as stated a thousand times before, we active forum users are a fraction of the total playerbase. Anyone just plain stating "the playerbase is decreasing/game is dying" hasn´t really got a clue, just their own assumption most likely based on the userbase of their go-to forum(s) which again, are a glass of water in the ocean, or people they know, which are probably a rain drop.
One day Privateer Press could reach GW´s size, and at some point they will also have loss of revenue. Will you people be here saying WM/H is dying, PP is going under too, or is it just a GW thing?
40K is still most likely the most played miniature wargame in existence. It can change though. But let´s say WH40K and WM/H would have an equal sized playerbase, companies behind them and popularity for example, or even the other way around than currently. So what?
What you seem to ignore is that despite it being currently the most played, all evidence points to that being a shrinking number.
Why is that important? One of the biggest draws of the game is its ubiquity; I can go to nearly any city of a decent size and find someone who plays 40k. I can't say the same about games like Firestorm Armada, unfortunately yet. However, when that changes, and it is, 40k won't really have much of a selling point. In fact, 40k has several barriers that are keeping people from playing. The cost of entry and the complexity of the rules are significant barriers to entry, especially when other games are considered. The best entry level product they have doesn't include the rules to expand the army, forcing the players to buy in for another $60, which again further slows down someone's ability to enter the game.
The biggest draw to 40k is the lore, for people who are entering via 40k video games, and the model aesthetics. There's nothing inherently enticing about it other than those two factors once their ubiquity stops being a major selling point. Already, games like WM/H are becoming prevalent enough that people are entering the hobby through PP games.
If your game isn't doing anything to draw new blood to it, its not going to survive. Your arguments consist entirely of looking at the now, and not the actions that will be causing things in the future. Every other game is cheaper to get into and stay in. Every other game has better written rules and better balance. Every other game communicates to some extent with their customers.
So while you're right that its the biggest playerbase currently, its pretty disengenious to say that it'll always be that way.
Blacksails wrote: What you seem to ignore is that despite it being currently the most played, all evidence points to that being a shrinking number.
I don´t ignore this fact, the amount of competition in wargames currently is larger than ever before. That alone causes such an effect, among other things.
It´s true that 40K could be harder to get into than other games on average, but there´s some variables there too regarding what a person wants to beginwith. A person might not, for example, care about having more complex rules or "entry fees." I think it´s more common than not to choose your ( at least initial ) wargame based on entirely different things than what is the cheapest or easiest to learn. I certainly haven´t met anyone who has said "guys I want to start a wargame, what is the cheapest and easiest to learn?" Most often they already know what they want to start playing, based on other things than those two. The reasons vary from the general look of the miniatures, the universe, look of certain army/miniatures, what their buddies play and so on. Ofcourse those two reasons ( money and ease of rules ) are also a factor, though.
Blacksails wrote: So while you're right that its the biggest playerbase currently, its pretty disengenious to say that it'll always be that way.
RunicFIN wrote: most played miniature wargame in existence. It can change though.
Store owner: Hey, can I help you?
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what.
Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux.
Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k?
Store owner: Well, the rule book is $90, the codex is $60 and a 1,000 army will cost you about $400.
Customer: Whoa...um...that's a little steep.
Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll only need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force.
Customer: That sounds good. Tell me more about that.
Future GW customer lost. It's pretty simple. Repeat that a bunch of times and soon 40k is no longer the dominant game and will then have little reason to play it.
Well that's true. We all agree that getting new players into the game is very difficult these days.
In our gaming club we have a few player who quit the game for a while and came back recently.
This seems to be the only way to get new blood.
I don´t ignore this fact, the amount of competition in wargames currently is larger than ever before. That alone causes such an effect, among other things.
It´s true that 40K could be harder to get into than other games on average, but there´s some variables there too regarding what a person wants to beginwith. A person might not, for example, care about having more complex rules or "entry fees." I think it´s more common than not to choose your ( at least initial ) wargame based on entirely different things than what is the cheapest or easiest to learn. I certainly haven´t met anyone who has said "guys I want to start a wargame, what is the cheapest and easiest to learn?" Most often they already know what they want to start playing, based on other things than those two. The reasons vary from the general look of the miniatures, the universe, look of certain army/miniatures, what their buddies play and so on. Ofcourse those two reasons ( money and ease of rules ) are also a factor, though.
The universe and aesthetics are definitely a draw; its certainly the only two reasons I'm sticking around. Speaking from my own experience, friends have expressed interest in wargaming, and when I explained the cost of my army, they turned white. When I showed them the rules, they just stared blank faced at it. When I showed them X-Wing, it was fun from the first moment.
Now, X-Wing and 40k are fairly different, but it illustrates the ease of getting someone into a game, and willing to spend more in the future. Anecdotal again, but I showed my friends Firestorm in one game and they picked it up easily. When I showed them the cost, they already drafted up plans to buy fleets.
Point is, while cost and ease of learning aren't the most important things for some people, I'd wager they're fairly important for many people. The more people you have playing a game, the easier it is to get more people to play, which turns into a positive upward spiral. GW is facing the opposite, with a customer base looking elsewhere, and having difficulty recruiting new blood to the barriers I mentioned.
The universe and aesthetics can override some of that, and it did with me initially, but having read the fluff and looked in depth at the models of other companies, I'm not convinced 40k is unique or cool looking enough to carry it through the other issues it has a game. Besides, if someone is interested in models and fluff only, it'd be an easier sell to get them into the RPGs. At least that way you're more intimate with the few models you do use, and it'd be cheaper initially and in the long run, while still being immersed in the fluff.
At the end of the day, I don't think there's a whole lot that really keeps 40k going as a wargame. Most of the positive experience of 40k can be got from the RPGs, or just collecting, or using them in other games adapted to 40k models.
RunicFIN wrote: most played miniature wargame in existence. It can change though.
Was this in an edit? Must've missed it, but yes, I agree.
MWHistorian wrote: But it is in the process of falling as evidenced by retailers turning their back and the dramatic decline of revenue.
Firstly, the decline of revenue isn´t really dramatic in the scale GW is at.
As pointed out earlier, they're making 50% less revenue adjusted for inflation than they were 10 years ago. Their revenue has been largely flat the last few years, but adjusted for inflation again, it's been declining in real terms. Coupled with *vastly* higher prices over the even a couple editions ago, the stark truth is that they're moving less product. They simply are not selling as much stuff as they were and have been on a declining real revenue path for a decade.
My own personal observations, beyond my own local club is that there's still a large number of players where I live, split between about 4 or 5 FLGS, and the sole GW. However, there's a distinct shortage of *new* players. There's a fair number in 6th who started playing again after not since 3rd or 4th, one or two for 7th that I know of, but for the most part, it's a stagnant community, and more importantly for GW, it's a stagnant community which doesn't want to buy anything more, at least not from GW. Even the used armies aren't selling as quickly as they once did. When I got into the game, stuff would sell off Craigslist in hours, maybe a handful of days, now the section is bloated, with offers lingering for weeks or months. The only thing that sells are special interest stuff; OOP models and the like.
The hobby survives, but there's a distinct aura of melancholy over the whole affair, people playing more and more out of a desire to use their investment of time and money, rather than genuine enthusiasm. There's a reasonably large charity tournament around here at the end of November, and I know everyone on the list, either first or secondhand. There's not much fresh blood out there, there's too many barriers from a business and game standpoint. Without fresh blood, the only way to go is down.
As a sidenote, I guess on the other hand there will always be people who like complex rules and big battles ( which almost directly translates to more money spent, most of the time. ) I guess there is also the other end to what a person finds fun, too simplistic isn´t that great either ( for me anyways, this is why I don´t bother with really simple board/tabletop games. I like the fiddling and the complexity. )
While other games are allround easier to get into, which is a fact, GW´s starter kits do get you started on it pretty good ( even if it doesn´t offer you everything you need to play "actual" 40K. ) I have a few mates who just started with DV and after learning the ropes it only really took them like a month ( = 4 games ) to get into full speed. Someone could argue other games starter kit gives you everything you need to play, and in a principal level its true, but let´s not kid ourselves. 2 Warjacks and a Warcaster are an equally small part of the entire WM/H experience than a few squads, vehicle and a hero are of 40K. The big difference here is that not all 40K armies are included in a starter kit ( which, as we can see, is seemingly about to change ) and 40K is way more clunkier on such a small scale than skirmish games. Then again, not all competitors offer that either.
Lastly, I wonder how much the continous bashing of GW affects new players who would like to enter the hobby through GW and would actually go ahead and do so without the angry mob with pitchforks meeting them halfway, changing their mind. Perhaps these people are infact affecting the playerbase negatively themselves, while simultaneously hoping for "new blood."
In the end, it doesn´t matter to me that a game I like is/isn´t the most popular around. I always wondered about the sheeple to whom it seems to matter. But, currently I play the two most popular ones so I´m good on that front for the duration of my entire hobby lifespan.
MajorStoffer wrote: Even the used armies aren't selling as quickly as they once did. When I got into the game, stuff would sell off Craigslist in hours, maybe a handful of days, now the section is bloated, with offers lingering for weeks or months. The only thing that sells are special interest stuff; OOP models and the like.
This also has to do with the playerbase most likely owning more miniatures as time goes on, which causes less overall need to buy a lot of them ( which is obviously one reason for GW´s declined sales. ). Afterall, rarely people just throw their armies into the trash, so the aftermarket inevitably bloats over time.
RunicFIN wrote: Lastly, I wonder how much the continous bashing of GW affects new players who would like to enter the hobby through GW and would actually go ahead and do so without the angry mob with pitchforks meeting them halfway, changing their mind. Perhaps these people are infact affecting the playerbase negatively themselves, while simultaneously hoping for "new blood."
That does not happen. Nobody yells at newbies to dissuade them from 40k, they are upfront and tell them that it will cost a few hundred dollars to get started, and then mention that alternative games require a lot less to get started, if not a lot less period.
There is no "angry mob with pitchforks" meeting interested newbies, it's more like a new player asks and a veteran is like "Well yeah, but the game isn't balanced and you'll have to spend hundreds to get started, and if you pick the wrong units you'll lose every game you play because it's not balanced" with the newbie saying "No thanks"
There's a huge difference between a situation like this:
Newbie: Hey I'm interested in starting 40k, does that go on here? Veteran: Lol40k? That game is terrible garbage. Don't be stupid, come and play Warmachine/X-Wing/Infinity/etc. instead. Only idiot still play 40k, and Games Workshop is the devil. Let me tell you how awful they are.. did you know the Chairman laughs about the fact they don't do market research? Newbie: O...kay...
and this, which is what generally happens:
Newbie: Hey I'm interested in starting 40k, does that go on here? Veteran: Well, there's a few of us who still play. The game is really expensive though. It's almost $150 just for the rules, and a starter army is going to cost you a couple of hundred dollars. The rules aren't really balanced either, so if you pick units that you think look cool but aren't good in the game, you're going to probably lose a lot just for picking the wrong units. Newbie: Oh.. that's a lot of money. Veteran: Yeah. But if you want a miniatures game there's also Warmachine, which you can start for $50 and play small games, and while units cost around the same you don't need as many, so you can buy a $50 unit and it's a big chunk of your army. Or there's X-Wing which... (I don't know about X-Wing so pretend there's info here). Those games are pretty well balanced. Newbie: Hmm, I like the sound of that.
MWHistorian wrote: Store owner: Hey, can I help you?
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what.
Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux.
Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k?
Store owner: Well, the rule book is $90, the codex is $60 and a 1,000 army will cost you about $400.
Customer: Whoa...um...that's a little steep.
Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll only need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force.
Customer: That sounds good. Tell me more about that.
Future GW customer lost. It's pretty simple. Repeat that a bunch of times and soon 40k is no longer the dominant game and will then have little reason to play it.
Actually thats not how you get into Warhammer 40k. It goes more like this:
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what.
Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux.
Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k?
Store owner: Well, the dark vengeance kit is made for starters, giving you the full rulebook and an abridged booklet needed to play simple missions the game comes with, and 2 small armies perfect for 2 people to play against each other to get to know the game. one of them are good guys, the other are bad guys, two sides of the coin basically. you get all this for $110.
Customer: okay, I'm not too sold on the two army concept yet. I mean I can only ever play half at a time, right?
Store owner: not necessarily. You can play them as allies and thus double the amount of points you have. In fact, the contents of the DV box put together make for a force that is larger than 1000 points. You just need to keep the two forces 12" away from each other while deploying, and roll a D6 each time a squad gets within that distance of another during the game and on a 1, that squad cant do anything for that turn.
Customer: Sounds ...good. What else you got?
Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force.
Customer: Okay, I think I'll try my hand at 40k since I can experiment with two different factions and also have everything I need in the box to introduce the game to my friend as well.
MWHistorian wrote: Store owner: Hey, can I help you? Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what. Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux. Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k? Store owner: Well, the rule book is $90, the codex is $60 and a 1,000 army will cost you about $400. Customer: Whoa...um...that's a little steep. Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll only need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force. Customer: That sounds good. Tell me more about that.
Future GW customer lost. It's pretty simple. Repeat that a bunch of times and soon 40k is no longer the dominant game and will then have little reason to play it.
Actually thats not how you get into Warhammer 40k. It goes more like this:
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what. Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux. Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k? Store owner: Well, the dark vengeance kit is made for starters, giving you the full rulebook and an abridged booklet needed to play simple missions the game comes with, and 2 small armies perfect for 2 people to play against each other to get to know the game. one of them are good guys, the other are bad guys, two sides of the coin basically. you get all this for $110. Customer: okay, I'm not too sold on the two army concept yet. I mean I can only ever play half at a time, right? Store owner: not necessarily. You can play them as allies and thus double the amount of points you have. In fact, the contents of the DV box put together make for a force that is larger than 1000 points. You just need to keep the two forces 12" away from each other while deploying, and roll a D6 each time a squad gets within that distance of another during the game and on a 1, that squad cant do anything for that turn. Customer: Sounds ...good. What else you got? Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force. Customer: Okay, I think I'll try my hand at 40k since I can experiment with two different factions and also have everything I need in the box to introduce the game to my friend as well.
Future GW customer won.
Until they realize how much it will cost to buy a real army, and how bad the rules are so without a lot of research they might spend money on garbage.
I'd better consider a comparison between 40k and WM/H.
PP also offers two army starter sets at a similar price.
A basic difference between both systems that you can get a playable WH/H army for a reasonable price, impossible in 40k.
wuestenfux wrote: I'd better consider a comparison between 40k and WM/H.
PP also offers two army starter sets at a similar price.
A basic difference between both systems that you can get a playable WH/H army for a reasonable price, impossible in 40k.
And the fact that WM/H rules are written clear and with a mind towards balance (not perfect, but as close as possible) while 40k has almost none and handwaves it with "forge the narrative" while at the same time allowing things that disregard the fluff and narrative entirely .
wuestenfux wrote: I'd better consider a comparison between 40k and WM/H.
PP also offers two army starter sets at a similar price.
A basic difference between both systems that you can get a playable WH/H army for a reasonable price, impossible in 40k.
And the fact that WM/H rules are written clear and with a mind towards balance (not perfect, but as close as possible) while 40k has almost none and handwaves it with "forge the narrative" while at the same time allowing things that disregard the fluff and narrative entirely .
Moreover, Steamroller provides a reasonable tournament format and each area has a socalled press ganger able to give feedback to the PP headquarter.
It is not that long ago that I was a new player and when I was starting with a group of people, we were interested in one thing. How much a normal army costs.
I've got to say I'm not at all happy with the following things and I'm voting with my wallet, anything I want at the moment is second hand and I acquire other things whichever way I want. Which is strange for me because I used to enjoy throwing my money at a company that was doing and creating what I loved.
- Fragmentation of the HH into 10000 stories and releasing books in premium super premium and 1000 other things before just giving me the opportunity to buy an ordinary damn book, the only paperbacks I was buying I might add and happy to still do it.
- Releasing a crappy codex then a "special" thing to make it playable (orks), just mucking with the rules in a pathetic money grab and its so obvious what it is.
- I loved the DA and Chaos book in hardcover I did not mind the price increase for something beautiful. Starting to release crappy codexes with crappy photos of badly painted models is not worth a price increase, I'd expect lower prices for that crap.
- Cracking down on rumours and such like might seem like a fantastic idea and dragging releases out over a month but I'm not remotely excited anymore about the releases, just don't care anymore.
Amazing how very quickly I fell out of love with the hobby thanks to GW, and yet it could be turned around so easily but until it does I'm not throwing money at it. Still love the lore and fluff so very much. Hate the company.
MWHistorian wrote: Store owner: Hey, can I help you?
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what.
Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux.
Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k?
Store owner: Well, the Dark Vengeance starter box is 93$ and includes the rulebook and starter forces for two players.
Customer: Whoa... that´s a quite affordable way to get into it.
Equally possible version of your prediction, I´d go asfar as to say that atleast in the GW stores they recommend the starter boxes for new players.
Until they realize how much it will cost to buy a real army, and how bad the rules are so without a lot of research they might spend money on garbage.
But nice attempt.
And maybe they don´t find the army costing too much, or maybe they have fun with the game even if the rules aren´t perfect. Your view of bad and garbage is factually a subjective term.
RunicFIN wrote: As a sidenote, I guess on the other hand there will always be people who like complex rules and big battles ( which almost directly translates to more money spent, most of the time. ) I guess there is also the other end to what a person finds fun, too simplistic isn´t that great either ( for me anyways, this is why I don´t bother with really simple board/tabletop games. I like the fiddling and the complexity. )
Part of the reason I got into 40k was because it was big enough to have a few vehicles in it. At the time, 5th at least made an attempt to streamline the rules so it function at that level, but now it works as a skirmish game with too many models. Yes, it'll always tend to be more expensive than pure skirmish games, but the current prices are nearing twice what they should be.
While other games are allround easier to get into, which is a fact, GW´s starter kits do get you started on it pretty good ( even if it doesn´t offer you everything you need to play "actual" 40K. ) I have a few mates who just started with DV and after learning the ropes it only really took them like a month ( = 4 games ) to get into full speed. Someone could argue other games starter kit gives you everything you need to play, and in a principal level its true, but let´s not kid ourselves. 2 Warjacks and a Warcaster are an equally small part of the entire WM/H experience than a few squads, vehicle and a hero are of 40K. The big difference here is that not all 40K armies are included in a starter kit ( which, as we can see, is seemingly about to change. ) Then again, not all competitors offer that either.
You illustrated the exact problem with DV. It doesn't give the full game. You still need to buy a codex (or two), plus additional models to even make 1000pts, let alone discussing the usefulness of the models you do get and the general disparity in points between the two forces. Its certainly a decent way to learn the basics of 40k, but other games do this better for cheaper.
Lastly, I wonder how much the continous bashing of GW affects new players who would like to enter the hobby and would do so without the angry mob with pitchforks meeting them halfway. Perhaps these people are infact affecting the playerbase negatively themselves, while simultaneously hoping for "new blood."
Well, first of all, its not bashing.
Second of all, if the criticism of the game keeps players away, maybe its for the better. If there's enough criticism of a product, maybe its for a reason?
But that argument attempts to blames the players, rather than the company making the game. Which is of course absurd.
In the end, it doesn´t matter to me that a game I like is/isn´t the most popular around. I always wondered about the sheeple to whom it seems to matter. But, currently I play the two most popular ones so I´m good on that front for the duration of my entire hobby lifespan.
Ah, sheeple, a surefire way to convince someone your point is worth listening to.
Maybe you could dial down comments like that? You don't need to call something bashing, or sheeple to make a point.
You aren't reacting to the player across from you, you're reacting to a random card drawn, of potentially wildly differing difficulties of achieving them, if at all, which is followed by a random dice roll to determine the number of VP on some of them.
If you're playing Maelstrom exactly by the book, you might as well just roll a D6 at the beginning of the game to determine who wins.
What I think Maelstrom does, and does quite well, albeit with some fairly significant flaws, is make people play the game. I've participated in, and witnessed a couple others, where someone has brought a point and click, easy mode list, Tau Gunline, Serpent Spam etc then had a torrid time because they actually have to think about what they were doing, rather than go through the motions and letting their unbalanced units win the game for them.
This is a good thing.
Maelstrom also serves to offer greater utility to some units which wouldn't necessarily get a look in were one to be building a list for conventional missions.
This is also a good thing.
What Maelstrom does which isn't a good thing is add in yet another layer of random into a game which already uses too much random and divorces the player's actions too much from the eventual outcome. In fact, is there anything in the game in it's current state that is not subject to at least one random determinant other than moving units over open ground (or a few that can ignore terrain?)
- Releasing a crappy codex then a "special" thing to make it playable (orks), just mucking with the rules in a pathetic money grab and its so obvious what it is.
You mean the sales that are steadily declining DESPITE releasing a new edition of their flagship game and, before that, a new codex for their most popular army? What, pray tell, do those sales show then? Growth?
- Releasing a crappy codex then a "special" thing to make it playable (orks), just mucking with the rules in a pathetic money grab and its so obvious what it is.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Is that so? Then what would you call removing options from a $50 codex and putting them in a $50 supplement?
It's far from dead. For a small rather fringe hobby, GW like it or not have made a pretty good business out of it. They are milking their success and I think are in danger of making it into a hobby for the rich but thats the world we live in today and 40k reflects that. I hate that kids growing up in households with limited disposable income will never get the chance to play but the same kids are limited in so many choices that engaging in tabletop wargaming probably shouldn't be top of the agenda. It's not dead or dying it's just becoming more exclusive.
I can tell you my experience. I came from another game that was discontinued. I needed to find something new. I chose Warhammer 40k for ONE reason. The reason i pick Warhammer 40k is because it is BY FAR the easiest game for me to find other players to play against. If I picked other games I would be stuck trying to get 1 or 2 friends to buy in with me and I would be stuck with just a few opponents. Warhammer 40k is pretty easy for me to get a game at any time I want one. So perhaps 40k is dying, but it still has the largest and most easily accessed player base. So if someone is considering starting a game and does not want to spend a bunch of cycles simply looking for someone to play with, it the THE choice to make.
What good is a game that is cheaper to get into, has better rules, is better balanced, etc... if you can never find anyone to play against?
That is how it breaks down for me and I want to think other people come to the same conclusions, so the rumors of GW death are overstated at best. (At least on this particular internet forum.)
And ancedotally, I have recently seen many more 40k players in my area for what that is worth.
What I think Maelstrom does, and does quite well, albeit with some fairly significant flaws, is make people play the game. I've participated in, and witnessed a couple others, where someone has brought a point and click, easy mode list, Tau Gunline, Serpent Spam etc then had a torrid time because they actually have to think about what they were doing, rather than go through the motions and letting their unbalanced units win the game for them.
This is a good thing.
Maelstrom also serves to offer greater utility to some units which wouldn't necessarily get a look in were one to be building a list for conventional missions.
This is also a good thing.
What Maelstrom does which isn't a good thing is add in yet another layer of random into a game which already uses too much random and divorces the player's actions too much from the eventual outcome. In fact, is there anything in the game in it's current state that is not subject to at least one random determinant other than moving units over open ground (or a few that can ignore terrain?)
I've gone on record as stating that Maelstrom is a good concept, but like I constantly repeat, its flawed in its execution. As you said, the assymetric/fluid nature of it is more engaging in a fashion, but (personally) marred beyond hope with random nonsense that creates a divide between player input and game output, beyond what already exists.
Assymetric missions are an excellent idea, but a player should at least be presented with a choice, or know sufficiently in advance to create a plan to deal with the situation. In that way, you're playing with the game and against your opponent, rather than just against the game.
Honestly though, who though random VP was a good idea?
Is that so? Then what would you call removing options from a $50 codex and putting them in a $50 supplement?
Releasing a great codex and adding even more awesome possibilities. What options have been removed, name them please.
I dunno man, can't speak for anyone else, but that codex was so bad it made me bail on the entire game. Didn't really add much (mek guns, painboss from IA8, giant walker, derp table) and was ugly as sin with the replacement of art with model photographs. The whole think just reeked of a lazy effort by someone who didn't care for the faction in question one bit
You might not agree that its terrible, but its certainly not a "great codex" by any stretch of the imagination
What I think Maelstrom does, and does quite well, albeit with some fairly significant flaws, is make people play the game. I've participated in, and witnessed a couple others, where someone has brought a point and click, easy mode list, Tau Gunline, Serpent Spam etc then had a torrid time because they actually have to think about what they were doing, rather than go through the motions and letting their unbalanced units win the game for them.
This is a good thing.
Maelstrom also serves to offer greater utility to some units which wouldn't necessarily get a look in were one to be building a list for conventional missions.
This is also a good thing.
What Maelstrom does which isn't a good thing is add in yet another layer of random into a game which already uses too much random and divorces the player's actions too much from the eventual outcome. In fact, is there anything in the game in it's current state that is not subject to at least one random determinant other than moving units over open ground (or a few that can ignore terrain?)
I've gone on record as stating that Maelstrom is a good concept, but like I constantly repeat, its flawed in its execution. As you said, the assymetric/fluid nature of it is more engaging in a fashion, but (personally) marred beyond hope with random nonsense that creates a divide between player input and game output, beyond what already exists.
Assymetric missions are an excellent idea, but a player should at least be presented with a choice, or know sufficiently in advance to create a plan to deal with the situation. In that way, you're playing with the game and against your opponent, rather than just against the game.
Honestly though, who though random VP was a good idea?
The same people who apparently thought SM Chaplains were OP?
Is that so? Then what would you call removing options from a $50 codex and putting them in a $50 supplement?
Releasing a great codex and adding even more awesome possibilities. What options have been removed, name them please.
I dunno man, can't speak for anyone else, but that codex was so bad it made me bail on the entire game. Didn't really add much (mek guns, painboss from IA8, giant walker, derp table) and was ugly as sin with the replacement of art with model photographs. The whole think just reeked of a lazy effort by someone who didn't care for the faction in question one bit
You might not agree that its terrible, but its certainly not a "great codex" by any stretch of the imagination
I constantly pull wins with footslogging boyz + grots + stormboyz. That's telling something. The lack of arts is not a great thing, yep. Mob rule is mostly fine except for random wound allocation. But 'ere we go and the return of old WAAAAGH! have been a straight buff.
Dakkamite wrote: A good codex =/= the number of buffs it got man.
Its like, the removal of fluff for the SAG. Thats just sad =(
I'm happy with the variety we can field effectively right now.
I'm not really happy with the new fluff. It's a bit boring compared to 4-th book fluff. Lacks the amount of ork hilarity.
I've gone on record as stating that Maelstrom is a good concept, but like I constantly repeat, its flawed in its execution. As you said, the assymetric/fluid nature of it is more engaging in a fashion, but (personally) marred beyond hope with random nonsense that creates a divide between player input and game output, beyond what already exists.
Assymetric missions are an excellent idea, but a player should at least be presented with a choice, or know sufficiently in advance to create a plan to deal with the situation. In that way, you're playing with the game and against your opponent, rather than just against the game.
Honestly though, who though random VP was a good idea?
Random VP isnt good. Which is why in most competitive formats we comp it to a flat 2
Which is what it should have been along. Any fixed number. It could have been 69 for all I care, but at least I as the player can make an informed choice about the value of completing a particular objective.
MWHistorian wrote: Store owner: Hey, can I help you?
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what.
Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux.
Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k?
Store owner: Well, the rule book is $90, the codex is $60 and a 1,000 army will cost you about $400.
Customer: Whoa...um...that's a little steep.
Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll only need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force.
Customer: That sounds good. Tell me more about that.
Future GW customer lost. It's pretty simple. Repeat that a bunch of times and soon 40k is no longer the dominant game and will then have little reason to play it.
Actually thats not how you get into Warhammer 40k. It goes more like this:
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what.
Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux.
Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k?
Store owner: Well, the dark vengeance kit is made for starters, giving you the full rulebook and an abridged booklet needed to play simple missions the game comes with, and 2 small armies perfect for 2 people to play against each other to get to know the game. one of them are good guys, the other are bad guys, two sides of the coin basically. you get all this for $110.
Customer: okay, I'm not too sold on the two army concept yet. I mean I can only ever play half at a time, right?
Store owner: not necessarily. You can play them as allies and thus double the amount of points you have. In fact, the contents of the DV box put together make for a force that is larger than 1000 points. You just need to keep the two forces 12" away from each other while deploying, and roll a D6 each time a squad gets within that distance of another during the game and on a 1, that squad cant do anything for that turn.
Customer: Sounds ...good. What else you got?
Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force.
Customer: Okay, I think I'll try my hand at 40k since I can experiment with two different factions and also have everything I need in the box to introduce the game to my friend as well.
MWHistorian wrote: Store owner: Hey, can I help you?
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what.
Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux.
Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k?
Store owner: Well, the rule book is $90, the codex is $60 and a 1,000 army will cost you about $400.
Customer: Whoa...um...that's a little steep.
Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll only need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force.
Customer: That sounds good. Tell me more about that.
Future GW customer lost. It's pretty simple. Repeat that a bunch of times and soon 40k is no longer the dominant game and will then have little reason to play it.
Actually thats not how you get into Warhammer 40k. It goes more like this:
Customer: Just looking around. I kinda want to do something, but don't know what.
Store owner: Well, we got Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, Infinity, FOW and Maliefaux.
Customer: Cool. What do I need to play 40k?
Store owner: Well, the dark vengeance kit is made for starters, giving you the full rulebook and an abridged booklet needed to play simple missions the game comes with, and 2 small armies perfect for 2 people to play against each other to get to know the game. one of them are good guys, the other are bad guys, two sides of the coin basically. you get all this for $110.
Customer: okay, I'm not too sold on the two army concept yet. I mean I can only ever play half at a time, right?
Store owner: not necessarily. You can play them as allies and thus double the amount of points you have. In fact, the contents of the DV box put together make for a force that is larger than 1000 points. You just need to keep the two forces 12" away from each other while deploying, and roll a D6 each time a squad gets within that distance of another during the game and on a 1, that squad cant do anything for that turn.
Customer: Sounds ...good. What else you got?
Store ownder: Well, you can play X-Wing, Infinity has free rules and you'll need about $150 for a full sized 300pt force.
Customer: Okay, I think I'll try my hand at 40k since I can experiment with two different factions and also have everything I need in the box to introduce the game to my friend as well.
Future GW customer won.
Wait, CSM can ally with Loyalists?
feth this company.
And loyalist can summon deamons.
(Though the most ironic one is that CSM can't ally with Imperial Guard. Go figure.)
Blacksails wrote: Second of all, if the criticism of the game keeps players away, maybe its for the better. If there's enough criticism of a product, maybe its for a reason?
But that argument attempts to blames the players, rather than the company making the game. Which is of course absurd.
Mate, it is sometimes plain bashing, but not always. And occasionally the more biased people are actually extremely unreasonable, and making things seem way worse than they actually are. I´m sure you acknowledge both these things.
Ah, sheeple, a surefire way to convince someone your point is worth listening to.
Maybe you could dial down comments like that? You don't need to call something bashing, or sheeple to make a point.
I don´t link the use of the word "sheeple" to making your comment more worth listening to, not sure where you get that. In this instance I use it to describe a person who makes decisions and even has a change of heart based on the popularity of a subject. For example, quitting a game because it´s nowhere near dying but might have slightly reduced popularity, even if he loves said game. Or listening and being a fan of that artist because everyone does so, or hating on something because others do. Doing anything just because others do it. The definition of sheeple in a nutshell.
Well playing since 2nd edition I remember traveling an hour to the closest shop that sold warhammer. However I remember at the end of third and beginning of fourth game shops were everywhere and games workshop had stores all over as well. Now the closest gw store is one in NYC and isn't worth going to because there really is no discount or incentive and nearly every game store has a small selection of games workshop product. And I have 3 local games shops in my town or the towns right next to me.
The game isn't dying however it's not as big as it was in it's hay day. Yes it costs more because to be fair playing a game in 2nd require 1/10 the models. I recently reused my orks which was my first army and I needed to buy almost 5x as many models to play a tourement sized 1850 list. The game is fun and once wave serpents are nerfed the game will be very welled balanced.
My only complaint about 7th is the rules are a little beardy however it's no worse then 2nd and 3rd was the edition they tried to streamline the game. Overall 7th is an amazing edition that let's you customize your army and play what you like with a ton of models to choose from. However I think some people are just bored and want a tight tourney ruleset instead of what 7th gives.
Mate, it is sometimes plain bashing, but not always. And occasionally the more biased people are actually extremely unreasonable, and making things seem way worse than they actually are. I´m sure you acknowledge both these things.
I don't acknowledge either of those things. What you may think is bashing, I think is criticism, most of which is likely valid.
Just because its negative about GW does not mean its bashing, or being unreasonable. Your opinion of GW does not inherently make an argument more or less reasonable, nor more or less 'bashing', or hateful, or any other buzzword. Don't call posts bashing unless you wish posts like yours to be dismissed as white knighting.
I don´t link the use of the word "sheeple" to making your comment more worth listening to, not sure where you get that. In this instance I use it to describe a person who makes decisions and even has a change of heart based on the popularity of a subject. For example, quitting a game because it´s nowhere near dying but might have slightly reduced popularity, even if he loves said game. Or listening and being a fan of that artist because everyone does so, or hating on something because others do. Doing anything just because others do it. The definition of sheeple in a nutshell.
But in the context of this discussion, calling someone a sheeple because they leave 40k due to its lack of local popularity, as an example, is not good for a reasonable discussion. As has been mentioned, part of the appeal of 40k is its ubiquity; most people can walk into a store and find a game of 40k. When 40k stops being popular, there's no reason to keep playing, for many reasons. Calling them a sheeple for migrating to a different game that is getting big is just insulting people for no real reason other than you look down on them due to some loyalty to GW.
The reason people leave are many, and while part of that could be due to falling numbers of players, I think its a little insulting to call people sheeple on that criteria alone.
Mate, it is sometimes plain bashing, but not always. And occasionally the more biased people are actually extremely unreasonable, and making things seem way worse than they actually are. I´m sure you acknowledge both these things.
Many people, of which you are the most recent, accuse me of being anti-GW. The fact of the matter is, as I explained to you recently, more complicated than that.
Let me say this, I find baseless criticism, what I assume you mean by bashing, every bit as distasteful as blind defence/hand waving. I simply seem to encounter a lot more of the latter on Dakka than the former.
I've just signed the petition in the thread in General, and I was genuinely surprised to see that it is closing in on 2500 signatures. Let that sink in, that's 2500 people (ok 2350 or so at time of writing, for full disclosure) who firstly are a) wargamers b) play 40K or FB c) spend time on forums d) have seen that petition and agree with it (ie are unhappy with how GW are operating in the main) and d) can be arsed to sign it (it's taken me several days to even notice there was a link, I just thought it was somebody expressing themselves as an open letter)
Now, given wargamers aren't the most numerous breed of hobbyist out there, when one accounts for all those factors working against it, that number of signatures could actually scale up to a fairly significant number of GW customers. Factor in their ordinary financials for the last year, and that they have declared a very modest interim dividend today (although, unlike this time last year, they have at least declared one) and it is very easy to paint Mr Kirby as captain of a sinking 40K ship.
I'm back in the game after a year and change off after 6th. I liked 6th, but it only seemed like a step in the right direction. Games were still repetitive sometimes boring, plus the rules changes left us with more questions than answers.
7th has revolutionized the game, maybe not from a tournament perspective, but from a fun perspective. More variety, more choices, means the game isn't the same every time. The 3 book thing, awesome. Sure i miss some of the art, and it's more expensive, but the quality of the printed stuff has gone up with the price. More photos, full color, hard cover... its nice. You can't make everyone happy but I'm back.
You must not be playing a lot, because all the game in 7th look like this. MSU army races to the objective, the player with the luckier mission hand drawn gets the missions. If he army is also not static, he gets firstblood too. And if his opponent doesn't have a better hand or more luck rolling on random VP, he wins. Turn one. I can't remember seeing any turn one wins in real life in 6th and the only one I heard of was one dude tabling himself by casting psychic communion and killing his only model on the table and the tau block board edge.
The power level of a codex does not determine how good it is.
That's why the number of DA players is so huge and chaos had same number of players under the 4th and 6th ed codex.
You mean the sales that are steadily declining DESPITE releasing a new edition of their flagship game and, before that, a new codex for their most popular army? What, pray tell, do those sales show then? Growth?
Second or third highest ever?
Here's their revenue over the last few years. Sales have been growing, but I can't remember the last few years. These numbers are ones I pulled from the annual report.
And here's their growth in sales. Their sales declined less than 0.1% last year. As you can see, they remain pretty similar YoY.
Are you mixing up what they can earn with how many number of stuff they sold. They have a sales drop, but because GW buffed up the cost of everything sky high and forces people to buy 3-4 books when normaly they could use 1-2, they earn the same.
You mean the sales that are steadily declining DESPITE releasing a new edition of their flagship game and, before that, a new codex for their most popular army? What, pray tell, do those sales show then? Growth?
Second or third highest ever?
Here's their revenue over the last few years. Sales have been growing, but I can't remember the last few years. These numbers are ones I pulled from the annual report.
And here's their growth in sales. Their sales declined less than 0.1% last year. As you can see, they remain pretty similar YoY.
Their revenue dropped significantly, their profits likewise. Due to inflation, assuming you adjust your prices accordingly, your revenue should increase YoY even if your unit sales remain flat. Therefore your income should always be growing unless your unit sales are shrinking.
GW raise prices above inflation and still experience a ~11% drop in income? That's not good.
EDIT
All this in a market where any available evidence points to overall growth. So GW is contracting in an expanding market.
Makumba wrote: Are you mixing up what they can earn with how many number of stuff they sold. They have a sales drop, but because GW buffed up the cost of everything sky high and forces people to buy 3-4 books when normaly they could use 1-2, they earn the same.
I don't have their units sold, but value of sales remained constant. However, GW doesn't jack up prices much differently than CPI or RPI, though there models that obviously bizarrely priced relative to the plastic used.
You mean the sales that are steadily declining DESPITE releasing a new edition of their flagship game and, before that, a new codex for their most popular army? What, pray tell, do those sales show then? Growth?
Second or third highest ever?
Here's their revenue over the last few years. Sales have been growing, but I can't remember the last few years. These numbers are ones I pulled from the annual report.
And here's their growth in sales. Their sales declined less than 0.1% last year. As you can see, they remain pretty similar YoY.
Their revenue dropped significantly, their profits likewise. Due to inflation, assuming you adjust your prices accordingly, your revenue should increase YoY even if your unit sales remain flat. Therefore your income should always be growing unless your unit sales are shrinking.
GW raise prices above inflation and still experience a ~11% drop in income? That's not good.
Here's the RPI and CPI over the same period of time.
Here's recent profits. Their lower revenue is mostly due to royalties from the now defunct THQ.
GW had their third strongest numbers ever last year. Hardly the sign of a company in decline.
People have being talking about GW's death since the 90's. To paraphrase one of the greatest writers ever; talk of GW's death has been greatly exaggerated.
Accolade wrote: I admit that I am not the biggest fan of GW, but I do try to be impartial in my opinion on their state of business and such.
Some stores I've visited in the past few years have remained at their previous levels of 40k, but then the amount the game was played there was never very high. Stores that I've visited that had a lot of 40k going on have seen substantial downturns...the main place I still see 40k being played in respectable numbers is the GW B&M stores.
I think this has less to do with the rules and more to do with the sheer cost of getting into the game. Rules alone set you back at least $130, and for that you're not getting a single miniature. The size of armies at specific point values (i.e. 1000pts, 1500pts) has also increased significantly through the last few editions as unit points have been compressed. What you get is a game that has tremendous start-up costs, and it is very discouraging for new players to join.
And this is something I find quite sad- 40k is being pushed further into obscurity when it was something that was previously becoming more commonplace (e.g. a couple of celebrities admitted to dabbling in 40k, I once met a Carolina Panthers player at a game store). I fear that, with the way things are going, 40k will become a wargame for the grandfathered-in or the wealthy, which paints an image of a bunch of superior-minded players looking down on the unwashed masses playing other wargames. That is a sad future if you ask me.
I think the point you raise with respect to the expense of rules is very relevant. I myself haven't updated to 7th for this very reason, as I can't justify shelling out £80 for rules and a new codex, even if it means I can't play at my local GW anymore. If this is a problem for a dedicated 40k player of 8 years like me, I imagine it's turning potential players right off.
Makumba wrote: Are you mixing up what they can earn with how many number of stuff they sold. They have a sales drop, but because GW buffed up the cost of everything sky high and forces people to buy 3-4 books when normaly they could use 1-2, they earn the same.
I don't have their units sold, but value of sales remained constant. However, GW doesn't jack up prices much differently than CPI or RPI, though there models that obviously bizarrely priced relative to the plastic used.
You mean the sales that are steadily declining DESPITE releasing a new edition of their flagship game and, before that, a new codex for their most popular army? What, pray tell, do those sales show then? Growth?
Second or third highest ever?
Here's their revenue over the last few years. Sales have been growing, but I can't remember the last few years. These numbers are ones I pulled from the annual report.
And here's their growth in sales. Their sales declined less than 0.1% last year. As you can see, they remain pretty similar YoY.
Their revenue dropped significantly, their profits likewise. Due to inflation, assuming you adjust your prices accordingly, your revenue should increase YoY even if your unit sales remain flat. Therefore your income should always be growing unless your unit sales are shrinking.
GW raise prices above inflation and still experience a ~11% drop in income? That's not good.
Here's the RPI and CPI over the same period of time.
Here's recent profits. Their lower revenue is mostly due to royalties from the now defunct THQ.
GW had their third strongest numbers ever last year. Hardly the sign of a company in decline.
People have being talking about GW's death since the 90's. To paraphrase one of the greatest writers ever; talk of GW's death has been greatly exaggerated.
Your analysis is pretty naive, but you think what you think and I disagree. I'm not prepared, however, to drag all this up again as the whole subject has been done to death over the course of the last two reports, and with another due in a little over a month (or early in the New Year at latest) it will all give us plenty of new information to talk about. We can make an assumption that things haven't exactly done a U-turn growth wise due to the very modest dividend declared this week, neither have they imploded. But then, nobody with any credibility has suggested they would, we are talking of the present tense, not the past here. (Dying, not dead.)
Incidentally you mention people predicting the death of GW since the 90s, and you're quite right. They have had two stays of execution in the management buyout and landing the LOTR licence when nobody could have foreseen exactly how successful that would be for them, it might be fun to speculate what could save them if they continue their current trend, because I fear they may need it without a fairly significant culture change and improvement on their products.
We actually have 2 warhammer days at my LGS. Wednesdays draw in maybe 5-8 regulars, and Saturdays usually boast twice that. Local tournaments in the area fluctuate between 8 to 20 people. Fantasy has a decent following, with everyone in my group having at least 1 fantasy army alongside 40k.
Now, that was before the recent FAQ shook fantasy up in a big way, so we'll see what happens next.
The presentation of profit over revenue there isn't super illustrating there.
Over the last few years (particularly the last ~5 or so) GW has implemented a number of single-time cost cutting measures (that largely aren't repeatable, such as moving off of metals for minis, closing huge numbers of stores and laying off tons of staff) on top of massive price increases.
They've been cutting anything and everything possible (bye-bye battle bunkers!) while simultaneously raising prices dramatically (for instance, going back to 2006 as above, codex books were $20 and guardsmen were 20 for $35, while now its $50 for a codex and 10 guardsmen for $30...)
Meanwhile their revenue, on the surface, is constant, again, but when you chart the inflation-adjusted revenue for each of those years from above (2006 onward) and you're going to see a downward trend over the entire period.
Simply put, people are buying fewer GW products. There are some other things you can obviously throw in there, the stuff like THQ's implosion, but ultimately, GW just isn't moving as much product.
Using the same date range from earlier (2006-onward) we get the following for inflation adjusted revenue (all numbers calculated in 2014 adjusted values). Out of the last 8 years, 3 have seen revenue increase, 5 revenue decrease (if you extend it back a full decade, to 2004, this only gets worse).
Does this mean GW and Warhammer are dead? No, of course not, but it does show a trend that fewer people are buying fewer things at higher prices and GW's revenue stream bears that out (even if you assume it's merely *constant* and not *declining). This had implications for the game and the hobby. There's a lot more competition that's a lot more high profile than at any point since the late 80's/early 90's (whereas in 2006 you had some Warmachine and maybe Flames of War in some places, now both are much bigger and other games like X-Wing, Infinity, Dropzone Commander, etc are hitting it big), and GW is very obviously a shrinking part of that pie. While I wouldn't say 40k is "dying", it would not at all be inaccurate to say that GW games market presence is shrinking not only relative in size to its competition but also just in the amount of product sold. GW and 40k are still the big Kahuna, but not the *only* Kahuna, and looking to be an increasingly smaller one at that.
Here's my observation, looking at 4 different stores in the area:
1. 40k in the first store is alive and well, with regular games and events. But there are more veterans in this store, so it feels like there's less growth and excitement. Other games are also played, and there was a brief burst of X-Wing dominance.
2. 40k in the second store is thriving, totally booming. On weekends especially, all tables are full with guys and gals battling it out with glee!
3. 40k in the third store is present as a pulse, with some games on weekends, and the occassional event. This store pushes cards more than anything else though.
4. 40k in the fourth store is probably dead or dying, with no one actively flying the banner.
One thing's for sure, the old formula of having a healthy pipeline of young bloods and keeping the community & excitement level up is just as important today as it was 10 years ago - and that's what store #2 has. From my personal gaming and hobby circles, the pattern is similar - most of the grizzled veterans have not touched 40k since 7th, while the new and mid-bloods have dived into in a frenzy. A handful of veterans, including myself, are the exception.
Overall, I think 40k has certainly lost its dominance. But it's far from dying. It might need a much better set of management in GW, but it's very much alive.
Fake statistics aside... Consider that while statistics dont lie, people who use them do. Therefore, anyone can manipulate them to say anything they want them to say.
In actuality, it is as strong as it ever was. The games are cyclic. Lets face it, it is expensive and people grow bored so players rotate though games and trade off.
This means that this 8 months 40k might boom in an area and slack off the next 4. Meanwhile, in an adjacent town, it might be reversed.
The whole question only exists because of players experiencing sour grapes because the game did not go the way THEY wanted it to go so they are trying everything they can to make it look like the end of the world and convince others to boycott the game in an effort to stranglehold GW to revert to earlier editions where the exploits they liked were on top. This is the worst case of this behavior we have had in a while but not because the numbers are different, but because this time around the numbers happen to be more vocal and the internet allows them to spam their propoganda to make it look bigger than it is.
So overall, its just as good as before.
I fully expect to get slammed for this post but I'm used to that
EVIL INC wrote: Fake statistics aside... Consider that while statistics dont lie, people who use them do. Therefore, anyone can manipulate them to say anything they want them to say.
In actuality, it is as strong as it ever was. The games are cyclic. Lets face it, it is expensive and people grow bored so players rotate though games and trade off. This means that this 8 months 40k might boom in an area and slack off the next 4. Meanwhile, in an adjacent town, it might be reversed.
The whole question only exists because of players experiencing sour grapes because the game did not go the way THEY wanted it to go so they are trying everything they can to make it look like the end of the world and convince others to boycott the game in an effort to stranglehold GW to revert to earlier editions where the exploits they liked were on top. This is the worst case of this behavior we have had in a while but not because the numbers are different, but because this time around the numbers happen to be more vocal and the internet allows them to spam their propoganda to make it look bigger than it is. So overall, its just as good as before. I fully expect to get slammed for this post but I'm used to that
You're such a brave martyr
What is this, Faux News? Seriously, you say that people are making up their own information about the statistics of dropping sales from GW, but then *you* make the claim that the game is doing awesome, honky-dorey, peachy-keen. Why should I believe you any more than those on the other side? At least they have some data to back up their claims...and it might be overstated at times, but again it's backed up.
I also don't get the whole generalization of the other side, aka people who aren't pro-GW, as sour-graping-eating grumps who exist solely to destroy GW. You must have a pretty low opinion of these people if you think they spend all this time griping about GW for the sole purpose of trying to bring about destruction of the company.
Again, I don't get it. You don't like GW's practices, sure, whatever. You love what GW does, sure again, whatever. Loving or hating them has no bearing on what is going on with the company, and if there are signs pointing to the grasp of 40k getting weaker, then there is no reason to sit and ignore it. That's what happened with WHFB, and it has been drifting further and further into obscurity. Ignoring the signs won't change what's happening.
I fully expect to get slammed for this post, because I know the thing anti-GW people don't want you to know.
The statistics come largely from GW's own investor reports. In those GW tried to spin it as "all good" for several years, but when you consider their largest investor outside of Kirby pulled out this year its apparent GW's main investor doesn't think things are good.
EVIL INC wrote: Fake statistics aside... Consider that while statistics dont lie, people who use them do. Therefore, anyone can manipulate them to say anything they want them to say.
In actuality, it is as strong as it ever was. The games are cyclic. Lets face it, it is expensive and people grow bored so players rotate though games and trade off.
This means that this 8 months 40k might boom in an area and slack off the next 4. Meanwhile, in an adjacent town, it might be reversed.
The whole question only exists because of players experiencing sour grapes because the game did not go the way THEY wanted it to go so they are trying everything they can to make it look like the end of the world and convince others to boycott the game in an effort to stranglehold GW to revert to earlier editions where the exploits they liked were on top. This is the worst case of this behavior we have had in a while but not because the numbers are different, but because this time around the numbers happen to be more vocal and the internet allows them to spam their propoganda to make it look bigger than it is.
So overall, its just as good as before.
I fully expect to get slammed for this post but I'm used to that
You may well get slammed for this post, but the reason you think you're used to it is because you think you get attacked in every thread you participate in, regardless of whether anyone actually attacks you or not. (Pro tip: they usually aren't - in fact never in my observation.)
In regard to your fairly poorly supported other point, you realise that GW revenue has been essentially flat for years right? That only people who feel compelled to defend them seem to think this is fine? This isn't an '8 month cycle' this is an endemic problem which has been showing symptoms for years.
Oh, and if you're happy to think it's a big conspiracy when people use GW's own figures to support their arguments about whether GW is doing fine or not then fair enough, but you're unlikely to get much traction on any of your own arguments.
Don't worry, if GW keeps the course of raising prices, adding more random, non-playtested nonsense to the rules, and continues to become even more insular, they'll just swing right back!
Youve obviously never studied history or economics or statistcs. You can make up any statistic to say anything you want it to say.
But yes, this is done every day across the world in all countries. i dont expect you to understand the concept. it may just be that you have not yet had experience with it yet. No problems and you are forgiven. However, this thread is not dedicated to the education of those unfamilier with statistics and politics, it is about where or not "40k is dead". just putting out there the statement that it is alive and well. If you disagree, that is your right just as I expect my right to make my statement to be honored.
Yes, lets not try to point out any problems you see in them or make an argument as to why they're wrong, just go ahead and call them fake and discount them...
All the info's straight from GW's own financials, simply adjusted to 2014 dollars (using the CPI index for inflation) and plotted it onto a graph with a trendline.
Also, we're not talking about 8 months here, 4 months there, we're looking at a *trend* over 8 years (which get *way* worse if you plot it back 10 to 2004) and looking at the *overall* trend, not just a short cycle of weeks or months.
EVIL INC wrote: Youve obviously never studied history or economics or statistcs.
I however have, I hold a B.S. in Economics and a Master in Business Administration.
So your saying that no one has ever in the history of mankind used statistics in a dishonest manner to say what they wanted them to say? That IS what you are saying.
The point is someone posts a home made graph to say that GW is dead and the company is going bankrupt ect ect and that it is ALL the fault of a few rule changes in one of the many products released by the company.
Where is the verification that the "stats" are legit to begin with? IF they are legit, we would need more info to go on.
like what time of the year was the numbers taken?
was this timing consistent throughout?
What were the releases in each of the given time frames ?
Resources, what was the cost of raw materials?
Was there any differences in shipping costs?
It could go all the way to the housing market and the value of the dollar bill.
All can affect the outcome of the numbers. It would not only be foolish to just take a home made graph as gospel of the demise of a company, it would be downright idiotic. Not saying that anyone here is doing that of course, just pointing out that you need not only more than that but more info. GW has gone up and down over the years slightly but the 40k game itself hfluctuates wilding across the world in different ways at different locations. Where today it is rampant, 6 months from now, it may be all fantasy or warmachine. a year after that, it comes back full circle.
It may well be going downhill but all evidence shows otherwise. I'm not going to nail the coffin shut till there is a body in it and a few sour grapes from a few players doesnt look to me like its gonna put a body in there.
Of course, you can turn this into a lets flame and troll at EVIL for 8-12 pages going totally off topic or you can stay on topic and just accept that I have a different view and experiences than you do. Might not be as much fun, but would be less hassle for us all. I dont tell you what to think or try to force you to agree with me. I accept that you have different views and opinions (after all, this thread is opinion based) i put my views out there in a polite and respectful manner. I expect you to do the same.
EVIL INC wrote: So your saying that no one has ever in the history of mankind used statistics in a dishonest manner to say what they wanted them to say? That IS what you are saying.
The point is someone posts a home made graph to say that GW is dead and the company is going bankrupt ect ect and that it is ALL the fault of a few rule changes in one of the many products released by the company.
Where is the verification that the "stats" are legit to begin with? IF they are legit, we would need more info to go on.
like what time of the year was the numbers taken?
was this timing consistent throughout?
What were the releases in each of the given time frames ?
Resources, what was the cost of raw materials?
Was there any differences in shipping costs?
It could go all the way to the housing market and the value of the dollar bill.
All can affect the outcome of the numbers. It would not only be foolish to just take a home made graph as gospel of the demise of a company, it would be downright idiotic. Not saying that anyone here is doing that of course, just pointing out that you need not only more than that but more info. GW has gone up and down over the years slightly but the 40k game itself hfluctuates wilding across the world in different ways at different locations. Where today it is rampant, 6 months from now, it may be all fantasy or warmachine. a year after that, it comes back full circle.
It may well be going downhill but all evidence shows otherwise. I'm not going to nail the coffin shut till there is a body in it and a few sour grapes from a few players doesnt look to me like its gonna put a body in there.
Ok, you're going off on so many tangents and red-herrings it's absurd here. (not to mention most of the things you're talking about are cost/profit related, not revenue related). Also, nobody said GW is going bankrupt What was said was that GW's revenue is declining if you account for inflation, and that fact, coupled with the very large prices increases over that same 8 year period on a very large number of products (with examples given), leads to the conclusion that fewer products are being sold.
Stable or declining revenue+higher prices on products means a lower total volume of sales. There may be other things that occasionally occur, THQ's implosion meant about a million dollars in revenue less, but that's not big enough to affect the overall trend, especially not coupled with the price increases (with most products notably more expensive than in previous years, some as much as 100% or more, like Codes books, Dire Avengers, etc).
The source of the numbers has been explained. I'll underline it so it's not lost again.
GW's own financial statements giving year-to-date revenue.
What was done to them was explained.
Adjust them for inflation to 2014 dollars via the CPI index and simply put a trend line to it.
Instead of actually saying what's wrong with the numbers, you're simply repeating over and over how you can't trust statistics (as opposed to actually pointing out anything wrong with them or if/how they're being applied incorrectly) and throwing out a whole bunch of garbage about costs (not something relevant to total revenue) and business cycles (8 years through 4 different editions of Warhammer 40,000 is plenty of time, and, I'll repeat myself for a third time, if we plot it out to ten years, the oldest year I can find data for, it only looks worse for GW) and getting into *housing markets* (seriously, at this point you're widening the variables to the extent that, by your standards, any basic business valuation or statistical operation would be infinitely complex) while yammering about how a "home-made graph" (i.e. I didn't make it look pretty in Excel) cannot be trusted.
Well, go check GW's financial's yourself, go to any one of a million places with the CPI index for the year, and run the math yourself. Should take all of 5 minutes in Excel. If you then have a problem and can point out where it is, I'm all ears.
Um.. We are talking about the profits. All of those factors and more factor into profits. Of course, you can sit there and ask me to list and type up a 100 page document for each and every single factor that could possibly tie into the bottom line on a profit margin or you could admit that more than the popularity of some of the rules of one of their products. it is up to you. Of course a few classes in basic economics could show you this.
SAYING the graph is taken from GW's private financials is ne thing I would assume that their actual pages look a little more proffesional than that. I could also say that they are taken from the financials of the Easter Bunny too. What would be needed is ACTUAL verification from GW. Of course, as mply demonstrated before, those would only be the results from a very specific set of situations. I notice that the "stats" do not go into mmportant details such as timing and releases and so forth.
In other words, the financials of a worldwide company of this magnatude would cover more than this little graph. Instead of blindly looking at a single home made graph, I'll ask questions and try to see the big picture.
But we have gotten off topic. You are free to look at this lil graph and extrapolate what you wish from it. I am not going to deny you that right. I expect the same courtesy.
When it comes down to it, this is academic because it means as much as a popcorn fart in a hurricane. The question is "is 40k dying" as a game. The answer is it is indeed cyclic. Just as with any other wargame the popularity of it in specific locales fluctuates over time. This has been a constant trueism in the worlwide gaming community for decades. True, some game have died out and even some games in GW's "world" have died out. 40k is large enough and popular enough that we are safe from it "dying out" and discontinued anytime soon. Regardless of a few rules or area fluctuations, there are enough people worlwide who love the game, the mythos and te storyline. Even if GW were to go out of business tomorrow, the internet and the world would be flooded with home made rules and tweaks and whole communities of players "keeping it alive" in one form or another.
EVIL INC wrote: So your saying that no one has ever in the history of mankind used statistics in a dishonest manner to say what they wanted them to say? That IS what you are saying.
The point is someone posts a home made graph to say that GW is dead and the company is going bankrupt ect ect and that it is ALL the fault of a few rule changes in one of the many products released by the company.
Where is the verification that the "stats" are legit to begin with? IF they are legit, we would need more info to go on.
like what time of the year was the numbers taken?
was this timing consistent throughout?
What were the releases in each of the given time frames ?
Resources, what was the cost of raw materials?
Was there any differences in shipping costs?
It could go all the way to the housing market and the value of the dollar bill.
....
The figures are from GW's own financial statement, compiled and independently audited in compliance with international accounting standards. The CPI and RPI statistics are taken from the Bank of England figures which are verified by the UK Public Audit Office.
You can of course take issue with these standards of accounting, however they are open to scrutiny and are basically the same standards applied to every public company in the western world.
As for a "home made graph" it doesn't matter where a graph is made as long as the data presented are accurate and verifiable.
If you think the graph is wrong, draw your own using the same data and scales, and show that it produces a different result.
Automatically Appended Next Post: For convenience of anyone wanting to do some analysis, here are GW's reported revenue figures for 2003 to 2014.
No one is saying the graph is wrong. The point of it is that GW is a world spanning company. That little graph simply does not hold ALL the information and only a total idiot would blindly look at it and not ask questions such as the details of the information used to make it. What factors affected the details. We have people posting here acting as if that graph holds ALL the information along with all of the factors. That simply is not true regardless of the source of the graph.
of course, i am awaiting the answer as to how a graph (regardless of it's source) affects how we as individuals see 40k. This because the thread is not about financials or graphs, it is about how popular 40k is in the gaming community.
I know that when i started playing, it was because of the cool models and the background and mythos. I did not ring up GW and ask them to make me up a little graph of their financials todecide whether or not I liked the game or the models. Others here might have but I am sure that if very person who played 40k worldwide over the last 30 years or so were polled, less than 50% would tell you that they did that.
of course, all evidence shows we are safe from this but if GW were to go out of business tomorrow, 40k would not die with it. There would still be players playing the game (whatever edition they prefer), players would fill the internet with home made rules and tweaks and likely fan fiction plus a whole lot more. 40k would still not die anytime soon simply because of the huge fan base.
GW financials are not what we are talking about. We are talking about the popularity of 40k.
th3maninblak wrote: We actually have 2 warhammer days at my LGS. Wednesdays draw in maybe 5-8 regulars, and Saturdays usually boast twice that. Local tournaments in the area fluctuate between 8 to 20 people. Fantasy has a decent following, with everyone in my group having at least 1 fantasy army alongside 40k.
I guess we should just let the anti-gw party live in their little fantasy world where GW is going under and 40K is dying when in reality none of that is happening at all. It´s not like their bubble can be burst, it´s made of Land Raider doors.
Blacksails wrote: I don't acknowledge either of those things. What you may think is bashing, I think is criticism, most of which is likely valid.
There´s criticism, often times valid, but I've seen quite a bit of bashing too, don´t know how you haven´t. ( Bashing is a harsh, gratuitous, prejudicial attack on a person, group, or subject. The term is also used metaphorically, to describe verbal or critical assaults. ) In any case, it´s quite the valid term and I don´t even know why I´m discussing something like this again lol.
Blacksails wrote: When 40k stops being popular, there's no reason to keep playing, for many reasons.
I don´t understand how ( for example ) 200,000 people playing instead of 400,000 playing is any reason to quit a game, nor do I understand why 40K shouldn´t be played if it doesn´t stay as popular as it is now. Why play any game if their popularity gets reduced? Quite frankly I don´t see any logic in that whatsoever. I do understand if no one in your group plays, it´s not a singleplayer game afterall. If you play with say, 10 people max, then why quit if around the world popularity is reduced but your group is unaffected? Because one has a change of heart due to overall popularit while it doesn´t affect him at all? If that isn´t being a sheeple I don´t know what is. It´s the textbook definition of being one.
Blacksails wrote: The reason people leave are many, and while part of that could be due to falling numbers of players, I think its a little insulting to call people sheeple on that criteria alone.
Hence I spoke about someone who only leaves because reduced general popularity, be it based on belief or perception. If you quit due to an actual thing regarding the game/company that frustrates you personally, ofcourse it´s different. Quitting just because you got the ( false ) image of a game dying from the internet superheroes is dumb from every conceivable angle afaic.
Here's the RPI and CPI over the same period of time.
Here's recent profits. Their lower revenue is mostly due to royalties from the now defunct THQ.
GW had their third strongest numbers ever last year. Hardly the sign of a company in decline.
People have being talking about GW's death since the 90's. To paraphrase one of the greatest writers ever; talk of GW's death has been greatly exaggerated.
I wouldn´t be surprised if someone would -still- come in and say "but guys but but in their recent sales report....."
Profit != Revenue, and Revenue is the number we're looking at. Revenue tells us how much money GW is bringing in overall and is a direct reflection of how much product is being sold (in addition to some other things like licensing, but in this case only accounts for ~1% of revenue), profit is the margin between the Revenue and their costs/expenses, how efficient they are with the money they take in. There's a big difference if we're looking at the state of the hobby.
We're working off of two things here. One: GW's income has been largely flat (with some variation up and down from year to year) in Nominal terms, and on the Decline in Real (i.e. adjusted for inflation) terms. Two: GW's prices on their products have increased over this time period, often dramatically.
From this we can infer that GW is moving less product and is bringing in less revenue. Now, if we're looking at profit, that's another matter, that's a measure of much of that revenue they get to keep. They could be doing this and *increasing* profit (if that's their aim however, it's certainly not paying off this year), but would be doing so with a smaller number of players paying a higher price for fewer products.
For the purposes of determining if a hobby is growing or shrinking, profit is fairly irrelevant unless we're talking about the company disappearing or something. If we were talking about GW going bankrupt, Profit would be the prime factor we'd be looking at, but I'm not making that claim, rather the claim being made in the earlier post is that purchases of 40k products are likely shrinking, of which Revenue is a far better indicator than Profit.
TL;DR Profit does not directly reflect sales, revenue does.
All of those factors and more factor into profits. Of course, you can sit there and ask me to list and type up a 100 page document for each and every single factor that could possibly tie into the bottom line on a profit margin
You're the only one getting into large numbers of bizarre factors like housing markets here, but again, profit, especially in the measure you're talking about, is more directly related to the health of GW as an organization (which, their mid-year statement claimed was about half of last year's), not their place in the market or changes in size to the playerbase.
or you could admit that more than the popularity of some of the rules of one of their products. it is up to you. Of course a few classes in basic economics could show you this.
I'm not even sure how to respond to this non-sequitur here...
SAYING the graph is taken from GW's private financials is ne thing I would assume that their actual pages look a little more proffesional than that.
Ugh
They're from GW's public financials. If GW's keeping a separate private ledger with significantly different numbers, well, then the numbers are probably much, much worse, and they're going to have a problem with their auditors.
Instead of addressing the numbers, which you skip over entirely, instead of attempting to replicate or find a fault in the math, you revert to the absurd red herring of "well you SAY that..." or just that my Excel graph isn't particularly pretty. That's a little silly.
I could also say that they are taken from the financials of the Easter Bunny too. What would be needed is ACTUAL verification from GW.
If the numbers I started with are false in any significant manner, multiple people at GW are criminally liable. They're a publicly traded company they has to report their financials according to a certain set of standards and is audited to ensure their compliance. These are the numbers that their stock price is judged by in the market and what they report to *their* investors.The CPI numbers are on hand from the UK government and Bank of England.
Of course, as mply demonstrated before, those would only be the results from a very specific set of situations. I notice that the "stats" do not go into mmportant details such as timing and releases and so forth.
We're looking at GW's overall revenue over 8 years, you're talking about stuff that takes place over weeks or months, or at the very best a couple of years, not the better part of a decade. Yes, if you look at the graph, there are in fact ups and downs, but once you look at the trend line (the red one) which accounts for all of those, it's declining.
In other words, the financials of a worldwide company of this magnatude would cover more than this little graph. Instead of blindly looking at a single home made graph, I'll ask questions and try to see the big picture.
Oh the "home made" thing again. Apparently GW's financials put into excel makes it "home brew" wizardry.
Give me a break, we're talking about GW's top line over a period of time longer than most of their employees or customers are with them, that covers both before and after a major recession. By your standards, unless we're running an econometric regression with an unfathomable number of variables, no reasonable economic estimation or valuation can be done. That's absurd.
But we have gotten off topic. You are free to look at this lil graph and extrapolate what you wish from it. I am not going to deny you that right. I expect the same courtesy.
Except...you're not doing that, you're making up every excuse possible (and many irrelevancies) as to why it can't possibly be right, without actually addressing the information it's portraying.
The issues you've brought up that have any relevance to the actual data have entirely been down to "Well I don't believe you/we don't *really* know those are GW's numbers".
The question is "is 40k dying" as a game. The answer is it is indeed cyclic.
Except again, we're looking at a long enough time scale that cyclic issues should be irrelevant. 8-10 years covers multiple editions of every major product, is far longer than most people at GW have worked there, far longer than most customers remain customers, and more than long enough to encompass and adjust for the overwhelmingly vast majority of business cycles unless you want to start getting into *REALLY* long term macro-economic issues, and then you're getting into economic wizardy. TL;DR release/business/etc cycles are small enough fish over this time period that they're irrelevant and the handy-dandy Trend Line accounts for those variations over the time period we are looking at.
When it comes down to it, this is academic because it means as much as a popcorn fart in a hurricane. The question is "is 40k dying" as a game. The answer is it is indeed cyclic. Just as with any other wargame the popularity of it in specific locales fluctuates over time. This has been a constant trueism in the worlwide gaming community for decades. True, some game have died out and even some games in GW's "world" have died out. 40k is large enough and popular enough that we are safe from it "dying out" and discontinued anytime soon. Regardless of a few rules or area fluctuations, there are enough people worlwide who love the game, the mythos and te storyline. Even if GW were to go out of business tomorrow, the internet and the world would be flooded with home made rules and tweaks and whole communities of players "keeping it alive" in one form or another.
I don't disagree on many of those points, I'm sure if GW went out of business tomorrow, 40k would get picked up in a heartbeat. However my point wasn't that 40k is in imminent danger of being dead, but rather that volume of products GW is selling is declining. In other words, fewer people buying fewer books and fewer kits, the obvious implication being that the 40k hobby is shrinking (unless you want to start getting into pirated products and knock-off's or substitutes with people still using GW's rules, which is another matter altogether).
By the way, let´s say GW were to downsize, so what? Does someone think it would be the end of Warhammer & 40K if GW were to be reduced to say, the size of Privateer Press, who are doing just fine for themselves?
Ofcourse, someone will come running in saying that GW is different and GW can´t do what other companies can or something similiarly unlogical but let´s hear it anyway...
RunicFIN wrote: By the way, let´s say GW were to downsize, so what? Does someone think it would be the end of Warhammer & 40K if GW were to be reduced to say, the size of Privateer Press, who are doing just fine for themselves?
It'd be questionable that they'd be able to continue to maintain the product range they do, or maintain the specialist organizations like Black Library and Forgeworld, and their retail outlets would obviously go out the window. The other sticker is that they likely wouldn't be able to continue to come out with plastic kits of the same size, complexity or ubiquity because those require huge up front costs (each mold is a 5-6 figure layout) that are recovered in large volume production, and if they lack the size to generate the sales to recoup the initial costs (or the investment capital to create the molds), then new kits the likes of somethinge like the new Glottkin will not be possible. There's a reason most other companies do resin or metal and aren't as big into plastic as GW is.
Ofcourse, someone will come running in saying that GW is different and GW can´t do what other companies can or something similiarly unlogical but let´s hear it anyway...
So...you ask a question and immediately dismiss any answers you might receive...
Hence I spoke about someone who only leaves because reduced general popularity, be it based on belief or perception. If you quit due to an actual thing regarding the game/company that frustrates you personally, ofcourse it´s different. Quitting just because you got the ( false ) image of a game dying from the internet superheroes is dumb from every conceivable angle afaic.
How is it dumb. If before I had 30+people to pick from to play against, in theory of course and now the only ones left are those with top tier ETC level armies, why would it be dumb for me to quit ? less people playing=game is dying. Maybe if someone plays in an area where there are 200+people playing and after cutting half your still end up with 100+opponents it isn't as bad, but a game dying means fewer players and it doesn't look as if w40k or WFB was getting more players.
RunicFIN wrote: By the way, let´s say GW were to downsize, so what? Does someone think it would be the end of Warhammer & 40K if GW were to be reduced to say, the size of Privateer Press, who are doing just fine for themselves?
Ofcourse, someone will come running in saying that GW is different and GW can´t do what other companies can or something similiarly unlogical but let´s hear it anyway...
If GW were to downsize then they would need to compete with others in the marketplace. That's a battle that they can't win without some significant changes to their business model that Kirby has shown no interest in doing.
If GW and PP were on the same level and competing for the same retail shelf space then PP would have several advantages:
- Half the cost to get started, half the cost to get a "full size" force, minimal cost to maintain (PP charges £7 for a deck of updated unit cards and £20 for the new rulebook versus £50 for the rulebook and £35 for the codex from GW).
- Much better balance in their game, probably as close to perfect as it's possible in a wargame
- Much clearer, concise rules that don't require a debate before each game on how you're going to play it
- Better event support including Pressgangers who promote the game in the local area
- Fewer models to assemble/paint before you can get started
GW would have:
- Better plastics
- More capacity for modelling
GWs current business model with eye watering prices is maintained simply because they are the biggest fish in the sea. People pay GWs prices because it is (or was) the easiest game to find an opponent for - walk into any gaming club and you can (or could) get a game of 40k in. In the UK, the vast majority of gaming stores were GW and most people are/were unaware that other games exist.
In order to compete on the same level, GW would need to:
- Rewrite their game from scratch to use modern mechanics and rebalance it. They would have to stop using "Forge The Narrative" as a poor excuse for awful rules.
- Either drop prices across the board or drop the size of their games down so you need fewer figures (neither option is gonna happen - the release schedule points to the exact opposite)
- Restart the promoter program (forgot what they used to be called sorry) and build up a network of enthusiasts that will promote the game at a local level
- Introduce event support including *gasp* tournament support
GW have shown absolutely no interest in doing any of these things, so if they downsized to the same size as PP then they would collapse even faster.
RunicFIN wrote: By the way, let´s say GW were to downsize, so what? Does someone think it would be the end of Warhammer & 40K if GW were to be reduced to say, the size of Privateer Press, who are doing just fine for themselves?
Ofcourse, someone will come running in saying that GW is different and GW can´t do what other companies can or something similiarly unlogical but let´s hear it anyway...
If GW were to downsize then they would need to compete with others in the marketplace. That's a battle that they can't win without some significant changes to their business model that Kirby has shown no interest in doing.
If GW and PP were on the same level and competing for the same retail shelf space then PP would have several advantages:
- Half the cost to get started, half the cost to get a "full size" force, minimal cost to maintain (PP charges £7 for a deck of updated unit cards and £20 for the new rulebook versus £50 for the rulebook and £35 for the codex from GW).
- Much better balance in their game, probably as close to perfect as it's possible in a wargame
- Much clearer, concise rules that don't require a debate before each game on how you're going to play it
- Better event support including Pressgangers who promote the game in the local area
- Fewer models to assemble/paint before you can get started
GW would have:
- Better plastics
- More capacity for modelling
GWs current business model with eye watering prices is maintained simply because they are the biggest fish in the sea. People pay GWs prices because it is (or was) the easiest game to find an opponent for - walk into any gaming club and you can (or could) get a game of 40k in. In the UK, the vast majority of gaming stores were GW and most people are/were unaware that other games exist.
In order to compete on the same level, GW would need to:
- Rewrite their game from scratch to use modern mechanics and rebalance it. They would have to stop using "Forge The Narrative" as a poor excuse for awful rules.
- Either drop prices across the board or drop the size of their games down so you need fewer figures (neither option is gonna happen - the release schedule points to the exact opposite)
- Restart the promoter program (forgot what they used to be called sorry) and build up a network of enthusiasts that will promote the game at a local level
- Introduce event support including *gasp* tournament support
GW have shown absolutely no interest in doing any of these things, so if they downsized to the same size as PP then they would collapse even faster.
I would wager if they were reduced ten times in size they would do some changes for the reasons mentioned. Still, GW being downsized wouldn´t be the end of 40K or WHFB, which was my point mainly. It´s a company just like the competitors that is run by people just like the competitors, therefore capable of anything everyone else is capable of ( and more currently, since they are the biggest. ) It´s ofcourse different if they would. I don´t see it any more impossible for GW to get a good bunch of higher ups in the future who will change their strategies for the better than I can see say, someone incompetent becoming the head of PP and causing trouble for them in the future. Both are equally possible things.
Hence I spoke about someone who only leaves because reduced general popularity, be it based on belief or perception. If you quit due to an actual thing regarding the game/company that frustrates you personally, ofcourse it´s different. Quitting just because you got the ( false ) image of a game dying from the internet superheroes is dumb from every conceivable angle afaic.
How is it dumb. If before I had 30+people to pick from to play against, in theory of course and now the only ones left are those with top tier ETC level armies, why would it be dumb for me to quit ? less people playing=game is dying. Maybe if someone plays in an area where there are 200+people playing and after cutting half your still end up with 100+opponents it isn't as bad, but a game dying means fewer players and it doesn't look as if w40k or WFB was getting more players.
I already covered the part about your own group being affected which is different, guess you didn´t read that part.
As i said before, believe what you like. Someone who has actually done their homework knows better. If you want to totally ignore economics go right ahead. Perhaps someday, you will take a few classes in order to understand them.
Your lack of knowledge on that subject aside (because it is meaningless to the actual topic here), when YOU FIRST decided that you liked 40k. Did you ring up GW and find out their financials before you were willing to say "Thats cool. I think I'll try it out"? Exactly how do you think that that graph will cause every single person who likes 40k to immediately stop playing worldwide? Even more than that, how do you think it will cause every one of us who likes the game or the mythos or models to immediately change our minds? Because THIS is what the thread is about. How popular the game is or do we still like it. Even those small minority who are unhappy with the current rules are outnumbered by newcomers who like them. Also, even those few minority still like the game, the mythos and models.
EVIL INC wrote: As i said before, believe what you like. Someone who has actually done their homework knows better. If you want to totally ignore economics go right ahead. Perhaps someday, you will take a few classes in order to understand them.
Your lack of knowledge on that subject aside (because it is meaningless to the actual topic here), when YOU FIRST decided that you liked 40k. Did you ring up GW and find out their financials before you were willing to say "Thats cool. I think I'll try it out"? Exactly how do you think that that graph will cause every single person who likes 40k to immediately stop playing worldwide? Even more than that, how do you think it will cause every one of us who likes the game or the mythos or models to immediately change our minds? Because THIS is what the thread is about. How popular the game is or do we still like it. Even those small minority who are unhappy with the current rules are outnumbered by newcomers who like them. Also, even those few minority still like the game, the mythos and models.
Not you RunicFIN. My apologies if you thought it was you. It was directed at Vaktathi. He has been going on about how the graph affects how much we personally like 40k. I'm pretty sure that back in the 80s when I started playing the graph was not done up yet and I KNOW I didnt ring up GW and ask them to mail me a copy of it before I decided that 40k was cool.
The thread is not about the state of the companies financials. It is about how popular 40k is in the gaming community. In the gaming community among us gamers, it is as strong as ever and if GW were to go under, we would still like it and play using the edition's rules we have or tweak them or make up our own. We would still see fan fiction and models would still be popular. All of which shows that the graph is totally irrelevant to the topic.
EVIL INC wrote: Not you RunicFIN. My apologies if you thought it was you. It was directed at Vaktathi. He has been going on about how the graph affects how much we personally like 40k. I'm pretty sure that back in the 80s when I started playing the graph was not done up yet and I KNOW I didnt ring up GW and ask them to mail me a copy of it before I decided that 40k was cool.
The thread is not about the state of the companies financials. It is about how popular 40k is in the gaming community. In the gaming community among us gamers, it is as strong as ever and if GW were to go under, we would still like it and play using the edition's rules we have or tweak them or make up our own. We would still see fan fiction and models would still be popular. All of which shows that the graph is totally irrelevant to the topic.
Ummm no he hasn't been going on about how the graph affects how you personally like 40k. He's showing evidence that yes, 40k is dying or at the very least receeding.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
RunicFIN wrote: I would wager if they were reduced ten times in size they would do some changes for the reasons mentioned. Still, GW being downsized wouldn´t be the end of 40K or WHFB, which was my point mainly. It´s a company just like the competitors that is run by people just like the competitors, therefore capable of anything everyone else is capable of ( and more currently, since they are the biggest. ) It´s ofcourse different if they would. I don´t see it any more impossible for GW to get a good bunch of higher ups in the future who will change their strategies for the better than I can see say, someone incompetent becoming the head of PP and causing trouble for them in the future. Both are equally possible things..
From the Annual Report:
On the first of January next year I will be stepping down as CEO of Games Workshop. I intend staying on as non-executive Chairman
(if the board will have me), so those of you who want to see an end to these preambles (rhymes with rambles), don't get your
hopes up just yet.
The board has prepared a job specification for CEO, and the consequential advertisement. The ad. will be published the day after
our AGM (September 18th). If you apply, we require that you write a letter saying why you want the job. No letter, no interview.
The interviews will take place on November 7th and will be at Nottingham. An announcement will be made the following week. We
have not decided what will happen if no suitable candidate is found but I suspect my wife will be livid.
Let me dilate about this letter. Last year I wrote here about our recruitment process, and shortly afterwards we recruited a new
non-executive director (NXD) using the method described. We got a great (not good, great) new board member. She is still
surprised that I did not read her CV (exasperated would be a more accurate word) but there was no need. Her letter told us what
kind of person she was: sincere, open-minded, a learner, excited at the opportunity. The interview told us she had all the qualities
needed. It mattered not one jot what her CV said. Appointing NXDs because of their careers rather than who they are is at the
heart of the rot in the corporate world.
There is absolutely no chance of anyone being allowed in to "shake things up".
Daedleh wrote: He's showing evidence that yes, 40k is dying or at the very least receeding.
No evidence whatsoever has been displayed about the popularity of 40K as a game in the scale of the whole wargaming community. Only about revenue and sales, which don´t translate into popularity of a game. They translate into revenue and sales. And evidence has also been provided that GW is still going strong, even if not making continous growth ( which is a fantasy to all but very few companies on this scale. ) Anyway, as stated before, in the end it´s cyclical like someone said before. The fact there are now more options than ever alone dictates players will play more alternatives and stick to the most popular option less. Many people play multiple games.
40K is nowhere near to "dying," and GW is nowehere near of going under. God.
And EVIL INC, no problems mate and no apology required lol. I just made sure I wasn´t radically misunderstood. And I agree, a graph about financial history doesn´t have much to do with how much a game is liked. I´m still quite certain it´s the amount of options people have these days that is causing divided playerbases, and I find it´s a good thing.
Daedleh wrote: There is absolutely no chance of anyone being allowed in to "shake things up".
I was talking about the future, which could be 7 years from now. Are you saying it´s impossible that one day GW will have a CEO that will steer the company so that they start making the business moves people want? If so, I guess you find most things impossible.
RunicFIN wrote: No evidence whatsoever has been displayed about the popularity of 40K as a game in the scale of the whole wargaming community.
The strange thing to me is that anecdotally 40k is actually dying even faster in popularity than it is in sales.
Obviously I'm talking entirely anecdotally because I have no widespread data to support it, only my own local observations... but I do feel like 40k is increasingly dominated by fewer people spending larger sums of money. Maybe it's just because I've gotten older and the community of wargamers has gotten older around me, but when I started our group was full of people who were slowly building up armies over a long time, often proxying before they purchased models and often quitting before they finished a single army. On several occasions in the past year I've seen people in the local GW (and I don't often go to GW by any stretch) buying entire armies in one hit, or huge slabs of them. As a kid I used to spend a lot of time in GW playing games and I never remember seeing people buying such large quantities of models in one hit. The only time I remember seeing people spending such large amounts of money is a couple of times when GW had 3 for the price of 2 sales and I saw a few people buy whole armies, but it was very rare.
Now obviously it's all anecdotal and I don't expect it to be taken as representative of the hobby as a whole, but it's just my observation in my local area that GW is selling significantly more dollars of product to significantly less people. There are definitely less people playing, it's harder to find a game than it ever has been and there's a lot more people playing alternatives than there has been in the past.
In my gaming group we used to play at least once a month in 5th and into 6th. I've played one game of 7th in 6 months and some of my group haven't even bought the rules. At my local gaming club X-Wing seems to be by far the most popular game, although there does seem to be some 40k going on too, but very little WHFB. So, for me, 40k is dying [which is a shame, because I really like 7th].
So if a shrinking player base isn't the problem behind the numbers drop, what is the assumption we can draw from GW's financial reports? That they're burning money in a field somewhere? (over exaggerated example).
People smarter than us HAVE analyzed the financials and determined GW is in dire straits; go and read the "Future of Games Workshop" series written by a former executive of a company that makes GW look like a goldfish. The fact you willfully ignore it to say "But it's popular here!" is meaningless. Facts don't lie. If you're just going to dismiss anything said that contradicts what you want, then there's no point in having a discussion with you since you don't want to acknowledge anything the opposing side says.
For me, I want two things out of a game at the end of the day:
1) Solid, clear, well-balanced rules 2) Miniatures that I don't feel like I'm being ripped off when I buy them
For me, GW fails on both ends. The rules are a mess with little or no thought given to balance, and the prices are terrible when you look at the value you get for them in the overall scheme of things.
I'll point again to GW"s new "Adeptus Astartes Strike Force" box on the site. It's $230 USD for 20 models: A Captain, a Sternguard squad, a Tactical squad, a Dreadnought, a Razorback, a Drop Pod and a Stormtalon Gunship.
I checked the points cost of it, and it's approximately 785 points with default options on the Studio models shown. In a typical 40k game 750 points is generally the absolute minimum that you can play, so this is roughly speaking an entry-level army. If you go overboard on wargear you might be able to push it up to 1,000 points.
If you ask me, $230 is way too much for a starting army that's the absolute minimum for a new player, and that's not even factoring in the rules and codex which are grossly overpriced by at least 50% themselves. If this boxed set was half the price, or even in the $150 range, I would consider it slightly on the expensive side but not bad overall value. At $230 though it's a joke because that's the STARTER army, not even enough for regular sized games.
Compare that to a starter army for Bolt Action, which is $128 and gives about 70 models in plastic AND metal and also not only gives you a "starter" army but a normal-sized army to play regular games, not just beginner-level games. The Bolt Action rulebook is $35 and the faction book is $25, so you can buy virtually everything you need to play normal sized games and still spend less than for 20 models from GW with no rules at all. Even before you get into the rules being better (IMHO), an army from Warlord Games doesn't feel like I'm being ripped off and paying more than the value that it's worth in the game.
EVIL INC wrote: Not you RunicFIN. My apologies if you thought it was you. It was directed at Vaktathi. He has been going on about how the graph affects how much we personally like 40k. I'm pretty sure that back in the 80s when I started playing the graph was not done up yet and I KNOW I didnt ring up GW and ask them to mail me a copy of it before I decided that 40k was cool.
The thread is not about the state of the companies financials. It is about how popular 40k is in the gaming community. In the gaming community among us gamers, it is as strong as ever and if GW were to go under, we would still like it and play using the edition's rules we have or tweak them or make up our own. We would still see fan fiction and models would still be popular. All of which shows that the graph is totally irrelevant to the topic.
The graph is not irrelevant to the topic.
The graph shows GW's sales year by year. These "sales" consist of people's purchases of GW models and books. The fact that sales are flat or falling is an indication that the popularity of their games is flat or falling.
Now it is true that there are different kinds of people who might or might not play GW games, depending on a number of factors. It is also true that a lot of veteran players who used to play have given up in the past couple of years, due to some of these factors. That won't matter to GW if enough people stick around, or they can recruit new players.
As to whether "40K" is dying, one of the things people often say is good about the game is that GW keep changing it, introducing new units and rules and so on.. If GW was not around to keep making changes, the game would die to those people.
Therefore the financial health of the company is important for the future of the game.
WayneTheGame wrote: People smarter than us HAVE analyzed the financials and determined GW is in dire straits; go and read the "Future of Games Workshop" series written by a former executive of a company that makes GW look like a goldfish. The fact you willfully ignore it to say "But it's popular here!" is meaningless. Facts don't lie. If you're just going to dismiss anything said that contradicts what you want, then there's no point in having a discussion with you since you don't want to acknowledge anything the opposing side says.
We already understood that all evidence that points to the outcome that you wish to be true is valid, and any evidence that points to the contrary is moot, and that you in essence aren´t satisfied with anything regarding GW or 40k. Facts indeed don´t lie, neither does evidence, and GW is still going strong allround despite having some reduced sales lately. They are nowhere near of going under, and 40K is nowhere near dying. But why discuss this indeed when you don´t acknowledge neither of these facts.
I´ll just leave the believers to their fantasy world inwhich GW is going under when they are going strong, and the most popular miniatures wargame is dying.
WayneTheGame wrote: People smarter than us HAVE analyzed the financials and determined GW is in dire straits; go and read the "Future of Games Workshop" series written by a former executive of a company that makes GW look like a goldfish. The fact you willfully ignore it to say "But it's popular here!" is meaningless. Facts don't lie. If you're just going to dismiss anything said that contradicts what you want, then there's no point in having a discussion with you since you don't want to acknowledge anything the opposing side says.
We already understood that all evidence that points to the outcome that you wish to be true is valid, and any evidence that points to the contrary is moot, and that you in essence aren´t satisfied with anything regarding GW or 40k. Facts indeed don´t lie, neither does evidence, and GW is still going strong allround despite having some reduced sales lately. They are nowhere near of going under, and 40K is nowhere near dying. But why discuss this indeed when you don´t acknowledge neither of these facts.
What evidence makes those facts? Show some actual numbers. We have shown numbers that their sales are DECLINING. What evidence have you put forth other than saying that you find enjoyment and it's still popular in your area? Their own sales figures show that sales are reduced, that does not mean they are "going strong" it means they are losing sales. I don't know what kind of businesses you've been in, but most would see that as something that should be fixed instead of continuing on the same course of action.
WayneTheGame wrote: Their own sales figures show that sales are reduced, that does not mean they are "going strong" it means they are losing sales. I don't know what kind of businesses you've been in, but most would see that as something that should be fixed instead of continuing on the same course of action.
And evidence has been shown that GW has continually increased revenue and that their sales have dropped by a mere fraction in the total scale of things. But keep believing they are in big trouble, doesn´t change the fact they aren´t. It´s moot trying to get you to realize this.
Ofcourse it should be fixed, but a company can be going strong even if they have reduced sales. Do you think like this about all companies, or is GW some sort of exception to you out of all the companies in existence? We can take an imaginary example of Microsoft and Apple. They can have reduced sales, and their company can still be doing fine for they are on such a strong foundation that their company can cope with years and years of reduced sales if necessary. Reduced sales isn´t the end of the world to a company unless it continues in scale OR longetivity that compromises the companys ability to continue functioning. Being in business isn´t about constant growth, it´s just a goal. The reality is continous growth happens to very few companies for the duration of their whole existence. It happens all the time.
Give me evidence that GW is having difficulty of staying in business, in risk of going bankrupt, instead of just suffering some lost sales. 2 Years from now it´s possible they have made a sales record, just asmuch as it´s possible they will be flat, or in decline. They have had reduced sales and increased sales before, and they still exist. Yet every time this same doom facade takes place on the internet when they have the former.
WayneTheGame wrote: What evidence have you put forth other than saying that you find enjoyment and it's still popular in your area?
Where have I said it´s popular in my area? Do copypaste that bit. And please do it, instead of just replying and leaving this part out.
WayneTheGame wrote: Their own sales figures show that sales are reduced, that does not mean they are "going strong" it means they are losing sales. I don't know what kind of businesses you've been in, but most would see that as something that should be fixed instead of continuing on the same course of action.
Ofcourse it should be fixed, but a company can be going strong even if they have reduced sales. Do you think like this about all companies, or is GW some sort of exception to you out of all the companies in existence? We can take an imaginary example of Microsoft and Apple. They can have reduced sales, and their company can still be doing fine for they are on such a strong foundation that their company can cope with years and years of reduced sales if necessary. Reduced sales isn´t the end of the world to a company unless it continues in scale OR longetivity that compromises the companys ability to continue functioning. Being in business isn´t about constant growth, it´s just a goal. The reality is continous growth happens to very few companies for the duration of their whole existence. It happens all the time.
Give me evidence that GW is having difficulty of staying in business, in risk of going bankrupt, instead of just suffering some lost sales. 2 Years from now it´s possible they have made a sales record, just asmuch as it´s possible they will be flat, or in decline. They have had reduced sales and increased sales before, and they still exist. Yet every time this same doom facade takes place on the internet when they have the former.
WayneTheGame wrote: What evidence have you put forth other than saying that you find enjoyment and it's still popular in your area?
Where have I said it´s popular in my area? Do copypaste that bit. And please do it, instead of just replying and leaving this part out.
Okay, you got me there - Maybe I'm confusing you then with one of the other "GW is just fine" people, there are so many of you that come out of the woodwork it's hard to remember who's who.
The point remains that declining sales is bad, and they also cut costs to the bone this recent financials and released a new edition of 40k and the SM codex, and sales still fell. That doesn't paint a good picture in any way, shape or form, and no amount of ignoring it will fix that. Nobody has said they are going to go bankrupt any time soon, people have said 40k is declining, and that's true. They cannot continue raising prices and making shoddy rules.
Now that I can´t decline, and it´s most likely true asfar as I´m concerned. But saying it´s "dying" is ridicilous as it´s still the most popular wargame on earth. ( And no, you did not say that, some did. ) But I´m pretty confident it´s just because there are so many options to choose from now, and as stated before, these things run in a cyclical manner. Just because a lot of people are trying other games doesn´t translate into reduced permanent popularity. This is easy to observe on a local level aswell: People are trying out new games and play many at a time, or take breaks from either the alternatives or 40K to return to said alternative/40k. Cyclical.
GW had their third strongest numbers ever last year. Hardly the sign of a company in decline.
People have being talking about GW's death since the 90's. To paraphrase one of the greatest writers ever; talk of GW's death has been greatly exaggerated.
What do you have to say about this, WayneTheGame? Just out of interest, no traps here.
In any case, I can only imagine these same discussions have taken place in 2007 and 2010. I would especially like to have been there in 2007 where they hit bottom, and rose up just to see what the doomsayers would offer as an excuse now. My guess is something along the lines of "Well, they could´ve gone under, there was evidence n´ shiz. Some crazyass White Knights be like GW gun´ be fine despite that. But but, they will go under this time, fo sho."
Just like Chaz said, this GW death discussion is everliving ( unfortunately... )
If you have evidence that GW is going strong, show us the evidence.
There's plenty of evidence that GW is hurting, it's the degree of hurting that's in question.
If you have evidence (other than wishful thinking) to the contrary, please show us. You can't dismiss evidence without something to contradict it. All the experts, all the numbers and even GW's own reports say that GW is sliding down.
MWHistorian wrote: If you have evidence that GW is going strong, show us the evidence.
A company that has continued to grow for 6 years running, had it´s best results very recently, and is now suffering a minor sales setback for one report ( so far ) isn´t still going strong asfar as you´re concerned? Does it seem like they are struggling to survive, hanging onto a thread, then?
MWHistorian wrote: There's plenty of evidence that GW is hurting, it's the degree of hurting that's in question.
Yeah. I´d say it´s just a fleshwound, and some say they are going under. Evidence points to them not being even near of going under or being in big trouble. That´s some hardcore wishful thinking right there.
I'm aware of how superficially ridiculous this may sound, but we'll use at as an exercise to separate those who have some insight from those who are simply employing "big numbers good, small numbers bad" analysis.
I have indeed noticed some individuals who truly lack any true understanding whatsoever ( or experience, for that matter ) on how companies of this size function and what is required for certain scenarios to be even likely let alone in effect.
It has now been stated in this thread alone that revenue doesn´t prove anything, that you should neither look at sales, and now profit won´t do either.
I guess we need a chart of how many keystrokes Tom Kirby has typed on his chairman´s preambles over the years, as this, when surveyed with some unfathomable logic, will provide us with an accurate and satisfying factual statistic of how GW is doing that satisfies all parties. It requires however that we add to this the amount of codices ruined by Matt Ward and divide the result with great pictures created by John Blanche, end result will tell us in a 0-100 scale how GW is faring.
A company that has continued to grow for 6 years running, had it´s best results very recently, and is now suffering a minor sales setback for one report ( so far ) isn´t still going strong asfar as you´re concerned? Does it seem like they are struggling to survive, hanging onto a thread, then?
Uh, wut?
They are in decline. Their response to reduced sales was increased prices which further reduced sales. In order to maintain profits, they began cutting costs. They reduced stores to 1-man operations, closed their bunkers in the US. They got rid of games days and closed their other european offices. They dropped metal in favor of resin for low volume models. Then they ramped up their release schedule ( we went from 8 Codex releases in all of 5th edition to 12 in 6th and already 4 in 7th) and profits are still down 42% over the previous year. That is not the mark of a growing company.
They are in decline, but we don't know if that will actually lead to "death" or if they will stabilize at some new, lower level of revenue and profitability. And that doesn't mean that every local scene will react the same. Some areas will see 40k boom. In others it will wink out of existence. Overall it will be less than before given the current trend line. The problem with these kinds of threads is that people let their local experiences form the basis for their view of the company's health.
Arschbombe wrote: They are in decline, but we don't know if that will actually lead to "death" or if they will stabilize at some new, lower level of revenue and profitability. And that doesn't mean that every local scene will react the same. Some areas will see 40k boom. In others it will wink out of existence. Overall it will be less than before given the current trend line. The problem with these kinds of threads is that people let their local experiences form the basis for their view of the company's health.
Underlined part a million times. Indeed, they are now suffering from a downward direction. It is my point exactly that this can however mean nothing in the end. Even bouncing back is a possibility just asmuch as it not happening. It´s a fact they are doing worse now than say, last year.
The fact alone that there are now more options than ever before when it comes to wargaming makes it so players will be divided among games, some permanently, some take turns in conjunction with their local groups between games or their own interests, and so on. This doesn´t mean the death of any game, by any manufacturer, from any logical viewpoint.
RunicFIN wrote: I have indeed noticed some individuals who truly lack any true understanding whatsoever ( or experience, for that matter ) on how companies of this size function and what is required for certain scenarios to be even likely let alone in effect.
It has now been stated in this thread alone that revenue doesn´t prove anything, that you should neither look at sales, and now profit won´t do either.
I guess we need a chart of how many keystrokes Tom Kirby has typed on his chairman´s preambles over the years, as this, when surveyed with some unfathomable logic, will provide us with an accurate and satisfying factual statistic of how GW is doing that satisfies all parties. It requires however that we add to this the amount of codices ruined by Matt Ward and divide the result with great pictures created by John Blanche, end result will tell us in a 0-100 scale how GW is faring.
Who stated revenue doesn't prove anything? Certainly not something I noticed. Revenue is THE thing, it's a hard number that can't be manipulated, massaged or misrepresented, unlike profit which can be manipulated up or down to suit your own objectives, or sales, which are a wonderful, ephemeral thing which can defined and redefined to suit your own purposes. Revenue has been demonstrated, using GW's own figures, to have been in decline for a number of years once adjusted for inflation. This means less money has been going into GW's coffers, which, in turn, for a retail/wholesale company means people are buying less stuff from them. If you'd like to argue otherwise, go right ahead, but I insist you show your working, just making statements of belief and fairly poor sarcasm isn't going to cut it I'm afraid.
If they don't fix things though, they'll learn nothing. The absolute worst possible outcome is that GW still writes crappy rules, sells overpriced figures, but only has let's say 25% of the market instead of 50% (numbers for example purposes only) and continues chugging along. That's not what any of us want, ultimately. We want them to look at declining sales and go "Oh crap what the heck were we doing?" and fix things: Write better rules, price models appropriately, foster the game and community and local retailers, and turn themselves around.
That's what *I* want anyways, because I do want to play again just not with how GW currently is.
WayneTheGame wrote: If they don't fix things though, they'll learn nothing. The absolute worst possible outcome is that GW still writes crappy rules, sells overpriced figures, but only has let's say 25% of the market instead of 50% (numbers for example purposes only) and continues chugging along. That's not what any of us want, ultimately. We want them to look at declining sales and go "Oh crap what the heck were we doing?" and fix things: Write better rules, price models appropriately, foster the game and community and local retailers, and turn themselves around.
I agree partially ( I don´t find the rules "crappy" even if the aren´t perfect and I have a good time every time I play 40k. ) Though I would be fine them having "example 25%" of the market than 50%, if that would result in better balanced rules and some of the stupider things like 1 unit codices and dataslates being removed ( I´m still okay with the miniature prices personally, but I wouldn´t be mad if they got cheaper. ) What I mean is that if being smaller is what it takes for things to improve ( as in being forced to alter their strategies, if it doesn´t happen voluntarily ) then by all means. I have faith that they will keep going as they have done all the time, and there´s clearly effort in changing things for the better even if it´s not exactly what someone wants. Codices are now better balanced than before ( albeit still not comparable to WM, but in their own scale. ) and the 7th ed rules are allround better than 6th and massively improved from 5th. New starter kits with more faction options are being made, and they´re pushing out codices to have them all on the same line ( or that´s their goal anyway. )
My own prediction is that they might do some improvements in the future, but probably not asmuch as some people want ( cheap books, cheap miniatures, WM level rules balance, reopened forums, easier entry to the game all combined ) and that they will continue to function as the largest or one of the largest wargame manufacturers for a long long time.
What I hope is even the most biased people will give GW a chance should they continue doing things for the better ( or do completely new things that some people want ) instead of continuing the GW doom/hatecycle just because. It´s a sad thing if they take a new good direction and the community just keeps on hating as they can -never- satisfy everyone.
RunicFIN wrote: What I hope is even the most biased people will give GW a chance should they continue doing things for the better ( or do completely new things that some people want ) instead of continuing the GW doom/hatecycle just because. It´s a sad thing if they take a new good direction and the community just keeps on hating as they can -never- satisfy everyone.
I think most of us would, just that GW has shown that they don't care about doing things better as long as they have loyal fans who keep buying anything they produce, and they actively ignore feedback and even communication. As I said, I would love to play 40k again. I have a community of 40k players. I refuse to get into it because the game rules from what I have seen are all over the place and the cost is astronomical. If they fixed those issues, I'd even be tempted to drop WM/H for 40k again. Since they don't though, I play WM/H which has better rules and feels like I get more for my money.
Imagine a GW that actively communicates, teasing new releases, providing alpha/beta rules to get feedback, has the devs on Twitter to ask rules clarifications, writes a balanced game and supports the local stores and doesn't price their figures like collectibles when they aren't anywhere close but prices them comparatively and offers deals and discounts and bundles. That GW I would support 100%.
I am still supporting them and loving the games, while acknowledging simultaneously that they could vastly improve some things with fairly little effort. I have faith that one day they will. Then again, it´s not like every company has to function the same way and I got no gripes about that, the level of customer interaction varies with all companies and GW is far from being the only one with a miniscule trend on that.
It cannot be denied however that their popularity wouldn´t increase if they would do the things you mentioned in your last post example. It´s given.
I guess it´s like I´m looking at a good friend do dumb, but not dead serious things with his life, knowing him well enough that I can rest assured he´ll get his act together one day, one way or another. When that happens I don´t know, but I have faith it shall be so.
I am still supporting them and loving the games, while acknowledging simultaneously that they could vastly improve some things with fairly little effort. I have faith that one day they will. Then again, it´s not like every company has to function the same way and I got no gripes about that, the level of customer interaction varies with all companies and GW is far from being the only one with a miniscule trend on that.
It cannot be denied however that their popularity wouldn´t increase if they would do the things you mentioned in your last post example. It´s given.
I guess it´s like I´m looking at a good friend do dumb, but not dead serious things with his life, knowing him well enough that I can rest assured he´ll get his act together one day, one way or another. When that happens I don´t know, but I have faith it shall be so.
I can't support the prices. I could maybe deal with the rules, but not paying $230USD for 750 points, or having a $50 kit that doesn't even come with enough options to fully outfit the unit in all the ways I want without buying another $50 kit.
I say that, but if they came out with plastic Plague Marines I'd be VERY tempted, but likely still the price would be offputting enough to not make it worth it overall.
The issue with the "managed decline" theory is that it would have to be done with a great deal more competence than it is easy to credit the current management team with.
GW are profitable now, but they have a massive cost base, and their revenue is perilously close to dipping below the tipping point where their expenditure outweighs their income.
Should that point be hit, the wheels will come off in short order, being unable to pay rent, utilities and wages tends to do that to a business.
Certainly a smaller business that can react more quickly is probably suited to this industry much better, but a managed decline of that nature is incredibly hard to do, and will be massively unpopular with the share holders.
I am still supporting them and loving the games, while acknowledging simultaneously that they could vastly improve some things with fairly little effort. I have faith that one day they will. Then again, it´s not like every company has to function the same way and I got no gripes about that, the level of customer interaction varies with all companies and GW is far from being the only one with a miniscule trend on that.
It cannot be denied however that their popularity wouldn´t increase if they would do the things you mentioned in your last post example. It´s given.
I guess it´s like I´m looking at a good friend do dumb, but not dead serious things with his life, knowing him well enough that I can rest assured he´ll get his act together one day, one way or another. When that happens I don´t know, but I have faith it shall be so.
At what age do you begin to wonder if he's capable of putting things right? Because this 'friend' is knocking on for 40 and still not getting things right.
40K seems to be holding out in my area. To be honest I read all the 40K hate threads on here, and the complaints seem to be great reasons to hate the game, on paper. To be honest with oyu I have NEVER encountered a single super heavy unit, forge world unit, or an unbound list, NOT ONE. I have a friend who has encountered a player with super heavies though, he said that played asked him if he wanted to play against it, when he said no the player simply did not field the super heavy. At the end of the day this game is about having fun, sure the game is not perfect, but what game is? Honestly my opinion on most of the issues that people complain about with 40K goes back to my opinion on most issues with most games. If you want to take super heavies, forge world, or unbound, ask your opponent if they want to play against that, and honestly JUST DON'T BE A DICK. wave serpent spam? Rip tide spam? Dick moves, don't do them. The quality of the game comes from the quality of the players.
Things is, that's like saying "giving alcoholic, drug dependant, hyper aggressive psychopaths free hand guns is fine, because nobody has ever shot me in the face."
Just because it hasn't happened to you, and that's great BTW, doesn't mean it can't, or hasn't happened to other people, and it doesn't make it a good idea. Much better idea is to not give/take away the guns and then nobody gets shot by the psycho.
True. Sadly some of us have some awful players as our only regular opponents and there isn't a lot you can say where there idea of fun is different to yours but still entirely within the rules of the game.
EVIL INC wrote: As i said before, believe what you like. Someone who has actually done their homework knows better. If you want to totally ignore economics go right ahead. Perhaps someday, you will take a few classes in order to understand them.
Again, I have two degrees in this sort of thing and do it for a living, and you're the guy who clearly isn't aware of how accounting and financial reporting for a publicly traded company works here. Knock off the flame-bait, that's what got you banned from Warseer.
Your lack of knowledge on that subject aside (because it is meaningless to the actual topic here), when YOU FIRST decided that you liked 40k. Did you ring up GW and find out their financials before you were willing to say "Thats cool. I think I'll try it out"?
Hooray. yet another red herring fallacy.
Exactly how do you think that that graph will cause every single person who likes 40k to immediately stop playing worldwide?
How/where/why did I say any of that or try to make it out like that's my intention in any way?
Short answer? I didn't. You are making things up and putting words in my mouth. Stop that.
Even more than that, how do you think it will cause every one of us who likes the game or the mythos or models to immediately change our minds?
Again, never something I tried to do, that's entirely in your own mind.
Because THIS is what the thread is about. How popular the game is or do we still like it.
Yes, how popular the game is. We were looking at GW's financials to see how much people are still buying as an indication of how healthy the game is on a macro-scale as reflected by the level of sales. I'm not sure how hard that is to understand here for you.
Even those small minority who are unhappy with the current rules are outnumbered by newcomers who like them.
Without taking a side on that, do you have any sort of metric to use as proof of that, or just your say so?
Also, even those few minority still like the game, the mythos and models.
not debating that at all, for like the millionth time.
You just don't understand Vakthathi. You don't have the secret knowledge that Tom Kirby will provide once you become a level GW-IV, after which point you can take a cruise with the management and be shown the truth of how amazing GW is.
Still not seeing any hard evidence that GW isn't in a decline. I'm not a business guy. But there are many people who are and anyone who knows anything about it say GW is in a decline. (Not just a slump or cycle, but a decline.)
What I'm saying is, given that it's in a decline, they need to chance or they will continue to decline until they level out at a much lower area or go under all together.
But in order to pull out, they have to make positive changes and that won't happen until they listen to the customer and pull their heads out of the sand.
Accolade wrote: You just don't understand Vakthathi. You don't have the secret knowledge that Tom Kirby will provide once you become a level GW-IV, after which point you can take a cruise with the management and be shown the truth of how amazing GW is.
Unfortunately the cruise ship is a Citadel Fineboat™ and sinks due to holes.
EVIL INC wrote: As i said before, believe what you like. Someone who has actually done their homework knows better. If you want to totally ignore economics go right ahead. Perhaps someday, you will take a few classes in order to understand them.
Again, I have two degrees in this sort of thing and do it for a living, and you're the guy who clearly isn't aware of how accounting and financial reporting for a publicly traded company works here. Knock off the flame-bait, that's what got you banned from Warseer.
Your lack of knowledge on that subject aside (because it is meaningless to the actual topic here), when YOU FIRST decided that you liked 40k. Did you ring up GW and find out their financials before you were willing to say "Thats cool. I think I'll try it out"?
Hooray. yet another red herring fallacy.
Exactly how do you think that that graph will cause every single person who likes 40k to immediately stop playing worldwide?
How/where/why did I say any of that or try to make it out like that's my intention in any way?
Short answer? I didn't. You are making things up and putting words in my mouth. Stop that.
Even more than that, how do you think it will cause every one of us who likes the game or the mythos or models to immediately change our minds?
Again, never something I tried to do, that's entirely in your own mind.
Because THIS is what the thread is about. How popular the game is or do we still like it.
Yes, how popular the game is. We were looking at GW's financials to see how much people are still buying as an indication of how healthy the game is on a macro-scale as reflected by the level of sales. I'm not sure how hard that is to understand here for you.
Even those small minority who are unhappy with the current rules are outnumbered by newcomers who like them.
Without taking a side on that, do you have any sort of metric to use as proof of that, or just your say so?
Also, even those few minority still like the game, the mythos and models.
not debating that at all, for like the millionth time.
For your own sanity, stop.
EVIL INC isn't *enter metaphor for an intelligent human being here*.
I find all these graphs pretty meaningless without context and comparison. So real revenue is down, that much we know. But what does it mean? How will it affect GW, how does the market react, how does this compare to other similarly sized companies during the same time frame, how big are the influences from external factors (the financial crisis for example), etc. We need more information to make any sort of judgment.
Mymearan wrote: I find all these graphs pretty meaningless without context and comparison. So real revenue is down, that much we know. But what does it mean? How will it affect GW, how does the market react, how does this compare to other similarly sized companies during the same time frame, how big are the influences from external factors (the financial crisis for example), etc. We need more information to make any sort of judgment.
Not really.
GW are unique in their sector, but their closest competitors (who are not comparable in size or structure) seem to be showing growth, there is little to be gained by comparing GW to similar companies who aren't in the wargaming sector, so any meaningful comparison is not really achievable. One could, perhaps, compare their performance to a more general toy manufacturer, but I think the results would be limited.
There is no correlation between GW financial performance and the financial crisis, a claim that GW make which seems borne out by fact. In fact there's good evidence to suggest that small luxuries do well in times of recession as people 'treat' themselves on smaller things while not being able to afford new cars or holidays.
Real revenue is down. Customers and third party retailers are giving GW less cash, it really is that simple. The reasons are where it gets complex, and without a wide ranging survey, can only be speculated about.
Within a few weeks we will have another report, which will again make it easier to make some more concrete assumptions, but there is plenty of info out there already.
RunicFIN wrote: No evidence whatsoever has been displayed about the popularity of 40K as a game in the scale of the whole wargaming community.
The strange thing to me is that anecdotally 40k is actually dying even faster in popularity than it is in sales.
ive seen the exact opposite (it is growing in popularity but not as much in sales although sales are still on the rise anecdotally speaking of course.and spoken with others outside of my geographical area who agree as well. From what I have gathered, this is due to prices and such things as nversions, 3rd party models and agnetizing to uild upbulk out armies.
Of course, as we have seen, the graph has nothing to the subject and only a fool would think it is. This is one example of why that you mentioned. The supposed profits (with no information regarding where the numbers came from or ho they were gatheredhe background information that wwnednformation) y is not a truy accurate reflection of ow much players actually like the game
The thread is not about profits or sales, it is about popularity. his is shown by actual gaming and the time a player will spend on the hobby. As mentioned, even though GW is secure in s, if some catasrophic change happened overnight to close the company down, the game would STILL be played. We would still love the mythos and we wuld still se fan fiction and home brewed rules. No one has been able to disprove this yet. Although I have seen red herrings and smoke screens, I have yet to see actual evidence that the game is 'dead".
I want to see this graph of people who like 7th more than those who don't. Because being slightly better than 6th (oh wow, better than the edition that was so terrible GW felt the need to replace it in 2 years to stop the hemoraging) and having to deal with unbound and a bunch of other crap does not mean I like it or many like it more than say 5th 4th or 3rd. In fact the only improvement over say 5th that 7th has in my opinion is the random game objectives breaks up the monotony of cross the board and punch each other, all while playing king of the hill on D3+2 objectives.
Orock wrote: I want to see this graph of people who like 7th more than those who don't. Because being slightly better than 6th (oh wow, better than the edition that was so terrible GW felt the need to replace it in 2 years to stop the hemoraging) and having to deal with unbound and a bunch of other crap does not mean I like it or many like it more than say 5th 4th or 3rd. In fact the only improvement over say 5th that 7th has in my opinion is the random game objectives breaks up the monotony of cross the board and punch each other, all while playing king of the hill on D3+2 objectives.
We had a poll about which edition was your favourite, after a bit of searching I dug it up...
Honestly, as a TO for one of our cities gaming stores, I've only ever seen unbound lists when people want to take a couple of things extra that they normally couldn't. 4 predators instead of 3 and so on. The worst people were expecting, an army of riptides for instance, has not happened yet in our game stores. Mainly because no one wants to:
A) buy that many riptides
B)play againsy an army like that.
Most TO's agreed that our tournaments will have limitations force org. wise. As well as house rules need to be in play.
Worst that GW has done really is make the game expensive, and make rules that either aren't very clear, or result in unnecessary arguing.
I mean, I honestly don't know how people liked 5th edition. I didn't play back then, but I've heard a lot about the rules. It sounds pretty terrible to me.
I actually prefer 7th over 6th, mainly because it fixed a lot of cheese. (I'm looking at you, Taudar). Granted, there's always still more cheese to be found, it just isn't as easily done now.
On the topic of if 40k is dying, well, hmm. On a personal level, I still love the game, as imbalanced as it can be. It's mainly the idea of dreading my 7th ed. Necron book. I feel there are a lot of special rules that units should have that would make them fluffy and flavorful, and yet a lot of the time it doesn't happen. Hence, my 7th ed. book, whether or not it's better, might make me reconsider playing this game.
Of course, as we have seen, the graph has nothing to the subject and only a fool would think it is. ...
...
Given that the fundamental law of economics is that stuff sells if people want it, the fact that GW stuff is selling less might be taken to indicate that people want it less.
Leaving that aside, it is rude to call members fools.
krodarklorr wrote: I mean, I honestly don't know how people liked 5th edition. I didn't play back then, but I've heard a lot about the rules. It sounds pretty terrible to me.
krodarklorr wrote: I actually prefer 7th over 6th, mainly because it fixed a lot of cheese.
I think the general consensus is most people who really liked 6th above and beyond earlier editions tend to like 7th even more. Hence why 6th didn't get many likes, but 5th and 7th got quite a few.
krodarklorr wrote: I mean, I honestly don't know how people liked 5th edition. I didn't play back then, but I've heard a lot about the rules. It sounds pretty terrible to me.
There aren't enough in the world....
I mean, sorry. But as a Necron player, I don't think I would enjoy using 5th edition rules. Play Rhino bunkers, then I can't do anything to you. How is that fun?
Glancing to death was still a thing in 5th, and you had Gauss. Exploding was easier than it is in 7th.
Irrespective of that, 5th had it's issues of course, every edition does, and picking on the worst (but soooo easily fixed) doesn't render it some sort of abject failure.
But my comment was more based on the "I've never experienced it, but other people have told me what it's like and I don't like it" nature of your post. Thinking like this about anything is a slippery slope into some very small minded thinking.
Azreal13 wrote: Glancing to death was still a thing in 5th, and you had Gauss. Exploding was easier than it is in 7th.
Irrespective of that, 5th had it's issues of course, every edition does, and picking on the worst (but soooo easily fixed) doesn't render it some sort of abject failure.
But my comment was more based on the "I've never experienced it, but other people have told me what it's like and I don't like it" nature of your post. Thinking like this about anything is a slippery slope into some very small minded thinking.
I look at it as more of a "I have Gauss, yes. But Gauss can't wreck a vehicle." state of mind. And considering almost every Imperial army had cheap vehicles, I wouldn't have had fun. Was it bad overall? Probably not, no. But, I'm glad I came into playing during 6th edition.
What you appear unaware of is that damage from glances accumulates in 5th, so once all weapons are destroyed, then any weapon destroyed results became immobilised, and an immobilised vehicle with all weapons destroyed was considered wrecked.
Azreal13 wrote: What you appear unaware of is that damage from glances accumulates in 5th, so once all weapons are destroyed, then any weapon destroyed results became immobilised, and an immobilised vehicle with all weapons destroyed was considered wrecked.
Well, then yeah, no one told me about that part, I was told it just has a -2 to the Damage chart. That sounds a bit more reasonable, though.
Azreal13 wrote: What you appear unaware of is that damage from glances accumulates in 5th, so once all weapons are destroyed, then any weapon destroyed results became immobilised, and an immobilised vehicle with all weapons destroyed was considered wrecked.
Yeah, krodarklorr I would avoid making wide-sweeping statements about 5th if you don't have any actual experience playing that version of the game. I mean Necrons came out at the end of 5th and were rocking it pretty well...sure, the prior codex wasn't great but then again it wasn't great in any of the earlier editions IMO (as well as being a relatively minimal army list).
Not as quick as Hull Points, but it was really really easy to stunlock vehicles into not being able to move or shoot, and then move on to nerfing the next vehicle.
Azreal13 wrote: Glancing to death was still a thing in 5th, and you had Gauss. Exploding was easier than it is in 7th.
Irrespective of that, 5th had it's issues of course, every edition does, and picking on the worst (but soooo easily fixed) doesn't render it some sort of abject failure.
But my comment was more based on the "I've never experienced it, but other people have told me what it's like and I don't like it" nature of your post. Thinking like this about anything is a slippery slope into some very small minded thinking.
I look at it as more of a "I have Gauss, yes. But Gauss can't wreck a vehicle." state of mind. And considering almost every Imperial army had cheap vehicles, I wouldn't have had fun. Was it bad overall? Probably not, no. But, I'm glad I came into playing during 6th edition.
Necrons with their current book were just fine at the tail end of 5th, Tesla weapons were plenty to deal serious hurt to lots of AV11 and AV12, on top of things like warscythes, cryptek weapons, Doomscythes, etc. It's just that Gauss weapons didn't just need three 6's to kill almost any vehicle in the game, and you could shut vehicle shooting down *way* easier. Once they got their current book, Necrons certainly didn't have any problems dealing with vehicles. It was an issue before that, but they were also running a 3rd edition book that was 10 years old by the time it was replaced.
Azreal13 wrote: What you appear unaware of is that damage from glances accumulates in 5th, so once all weapons are destroyed, then any weapon destroyed results became immobilised, and an immobilised vehicle with all weapons destroyed was considered wrecked.
Yeah, krodarklorr I would avoid making wide-sweeping statements about 5th if you don't have any actual experience playing that version of the game. I mean Necrons came out at the end of 5th and were rocking it pretty well...sure, the prior codex wasn't great but then again it wasn't great in any of the earlier editions IMO (as well as being a relatively minimal army list).
Well, when numerous people say roughly the same thing, it's hard to get a good picture of it. I was wrong about the Glancing, yes. But would I prefer Hull points on vehicles? Absolutely.
The different editions seem to have multiple good and bad points to them, which points to the fact that GW is just swinging the pendulum. Hull points were supposed to address the issue of vehicles in 5th being too easy to just stun-lock out of the game without destroying them. With HP, they're getting slowly chipped away and then suffer catastrophic collapse. Or at least, that was the idea...it didn't quite work out as well and *still* didn't address the discrepancy issues with vehicles (i.e. walkers STILL being crap).
Accolade wrote: The different editions seem to have multiple good and bad points to them, which points to the fact that GW is just swinging the pendulum. Hull points were supposed to address the issue of vehicles in 5th being too easy to just stun-lock out of the game without destroying them. With HP, they're getting slowly chipped away and then suffer catastrophic collapse. Or at least, that was the idea...it didn't quite work out as well and *still* didn't address the discrepancy issues with vehicles (i.e. walkers STILL being crap).
Well, with 7th, I think Vehicles got put on a decent level. At least, better than 6th. The chart is much better in my opinion, but then it also directly affected Necrons in multiple ways, so I'm probably biased. My main gripes with Walkers are the fact that some of them are considered to be "Monstrous Creature" and therefor completely changes the gameplay of the unit, which makes absolutely no sense to me.
Yeah, that's been a huge gripe with a lot of people. There is no rhyme or reason to it, but then that's more systemic of the rules for 40k than anything...
Counting a vehicle as a walker as an MC, which all have somewhat different rules, might not make logical sense but it can be used to create variety in the game out of basic clusters of rules.
That is not to say necessarily that GW do this, but one can have hope.
I am surprised to see 4th Edition rated so highly in that poll, but that sentiment could also be bias and psychological backlash on my part due to the rapid re-configuration of power disparities within the game and the "less is more" mentality that affected everyone except the suddenly ascendant space-marines. I disliked it enough that I dropped the game like a bad habit for five years. 5th edition and the eventual release of the Dark Eldar codex in 2010 is what brought me back. While 5th Edition had vehicle issues (that could have been fixed with hull-point introduction) and wound allocation issues (that were fixed in 6th with the pull from the front mechanic) it felt fast paced and tactical. There where options and strategies that you had control over in-game and assault was valid without being broken.
Getting back to the topic:
In truth I want to see Warhammer 40k do well and to see Games Workshop prosper. I love the game lore, the flavor, and the distinctly cynical British feel, but the company's decisions on all levels are questionable at best. Over time it gets more and more difficult to defend them and the grass on the other side of the fence starts to look greener. The problem is that it often is. Games-Workshop has dammed up the canal that feeds its crops and can not be bothered to fix it.
I really didn't like 5th edition. In my experience it was MSU transport spam, which really sucked if you wanted to play, oh I don't know anything but that? In my old area the only people who really enjoyed it were the mech-lovers, because suddenly their armies became the top dog.
I understand why people liked 5th. When I read the rules I liked 'em. But it was the edition that killed 40K in my hometown and reduced the amount of fun I had with the game to 0.
There are tons of things wrong with 7th, but I still like it. It's not perfect, but no edition ever will be if we're honest. GW writes rules, some of them are good, some of them are bad. Do I wish they were better at it? Yes, of course I do! I just don't see that changing. For what it's worth though, I'm enjoying this edition of the game more than I enjoyed 5th.
I will agree that they should've started to clean up the stupidity that is 'oh this is a giant walker... PSYCHE! It's an MC!!!' It makes no sense. I've heard some people explaining it that the pilot is so well-interfaced with the machine that they are one being, but then why aren't dreadnoughts MCs? The guy piloting is mind-linked for crying out loud! You can't get any better interfaced than that... And besides, why make vehicle rules when you're not going to give them to half the vehicles in the game?
Personally, for me, 40k (and GW for that matter) died back in 2012. I got tired of the constant price increases GW was inflicting on its customer base. It got to the point where I just couldn't justify spending my limited hobby funds on GW product anymore. I switched my game of choice to X-Wing and haven't regretted it one bit. And at my FLGS I'm not the only ex-40k player to make the switch to X-Wing or other, more affordable, miniature games like Malifaux or WarmaHordes. Now I do like the 40k universe background and have other options to indulge my 40k interests via FFG's RPGs and the new LCG.
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It´s not like their bubble can be burst, it´s made of Land Raider doors.
