This isn't from the perspective of the player; we all want things. It's our prerogative to want things. But GW has more to consider than just our off-the-cuff whims and demands. Your primary consideration needs to be profitability.

I think I'd look at fundamentally changing the business model with regard to the codex and rules. GW is too reliant on big spikes of cash driven by the release of popular books. The transition that they claim they're making to a more balanced game supports an as-a-service model. Imagine if they did the following:

- Offer a monthly $4 subscription to the core rules in lieu of buying the main book, +$3 for each current codex you subscribe to, plus additional costs that may be associated with legacy/specialty rules. Allow the player to subscribe to the rules that they use.
- Provide a monthly release of rules and points updates (quarterly releases for rules changes, and monthly for errata / points-adjustments). This keeps them subscribing.
- Within that same cost, provide a Battlescribe-like functionality. Put in some additional value-add functionality, like being able to print out unit cards that includes all of the relevant rules, export army lists in PDF, view it on your phone etc.
- Offer a functionality for tournament organisers where players can register their lists. Have the site automatically confirm legality of the list and provide a mechanism for the TO to track success of different players. The goal is to use information gathered through this to drive your rules/points updates.

Now, you don't want to lose money from selling books. You still release codices, supplements and rules in book form. But for new rules you delay the web portal being updated by a period of time (3 months?). Tell customers that the rules in books are delayed to ensure the stability of the balance. Some people will buy because of fluff/artwork, and some just always like the newest shiny. However, book sales WILL decrease.

With regard to introducing such a change, you wouldn't do a hard cutover. You offer the functionality, but initially stagger the updates to be closer to Chapter Approved. Getting the Chapter Approved update for $7 in the first month would move a lot of people over.

Would following my plan help or hurt the GW business?

What are your ideas to move the GW business forwards?

£40 annual subscription to all rules and erratas (different subscriptions for 40k and AoS) Don't include fluff, leave that in the physical books.

Make more models rather than reduce codex entries.

I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

 JamesY wrote:
£40 annual subscription to all rules and erratas (different subscriptions for 40k and AoS) Don't include fluff, leave that in the physical books.

Make more models rather than reduce codex entries.

Maybe an annual subscription is better. You want to balance keeping the cost low so that people pick up the game, but you also don't want to leave money on the table. I'm not convinced either way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

/thread

Fire all of the people writing the rules, burn the entire game to the ground, and hire competent game developers to start over from scratch. Changing the packaging of the rules is not going to fix anything when you still have the same incompetent morons writing those rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sorcererbob wrote:
How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

How? By looking for a proven record of successful game design. And by removing the "casual at all costs" cancer that infests GW culture so that I can hire competent game designers based on their ability to make good rules, not idiots who believe that the rules don't matter because beer and pretzels.

Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

Plastic Sisters of Battle. That's what I'd do.

 Hollow wrote:
Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

And yet it's still falling well short of where GW could be, if they stopped putting out low-effort garbage, stopped taking their market leader position for granted, and made a legitimate effort to be the best game company in the world. But it's nice to see you handwave away legitimate criticism with "crying little neck-beards" instead of addressing the substance of GW's problems.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

This is never going to happen. Nobody wants the GW IP, and they certainly don't want to pay GW for it. Even if something like 40k could actually succeed (a debatable point) GW's customer base is too small and their brand recognition is far too limited for anyone to bother with licensing it when they can just rip off the same things GW ripped off and make their own grimdark space war movie.

 Hollow wrote:
Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

Totally this (apart from the film thing, which I still maintain is a horrible idea and should be swerved as hard as possible, but that's a different discussion). It's hilarious how many comments there are to the effect of "GW have no idea how to run a company; everyone should be sacked" flying around. Sure, there are certain things I'd like to see changed, but the way GW are doing things at the moment seems to be working pretty well for them overall.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

And yet it's still falling well short of where GW could be, if they stopped putting out low-effort garbage, stopped taking their market leader position for granted, and made a legitimate effort to be the best game company in the world. But it's nice to see you handwave away legitimate criticism with "crying little neck-beards" instead of addressing the substance of GW's problems.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

This is never going to happen. Nobody wants the GW IP, and they certainly don't want to pay GW for it. Even if something like 40k could actually succeed (a debatable point) GW's customer base is too small and their brand recognition is far too limited for anyone to bother with licensing it when they can just rip off the same things GW ripped off and make their own grimdark space war movie.

An where is that exactly? Where "Should" they be? In your expert opinion of course.
They put out high-quality models, rules and lore. Garbage? If that's what you think. Leave.
Market leader? But you just said they are garbage? Hmm. They aren't just market leader, they literally dwarf everything and anyone in the same realm many times over.
They are the best game company in the world (They do have some issues)
I don't handwave away legitamate critcism. I handwave away pathetic, cry-baby BS from smelly neckbeards which this forum has too much of.
Nobody wants GW IP? Apart from all those game companies of course.

 Nazrak wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

Totally this (apart from the film thing, which I still maintain is a horrible idea and should be swerved as hard as possible, but that's a different discussion). It's hilarious how many comments there are to the effect of "GW have no idea how to run a company; everyone should be sacked" flying around. Sure, there are certain things I'd like to see changed, but the way GW are doing things at the moment seems to be working pretty well for them overall.

I didn't come here to incite a flame war, but I'm starting to see who on this forum can present a well-considered answer, and who simply wants things like a child does.

hobojebus wrote:
How? By looking for a proven record of successful game design. And by removing the "casual at all costs" cancer that infests GW culture so that I can hire competent game designers based on their ability to make good rules, not idiots who believe that the rules don't matter because beer and pretzels.

I think a proven record of game design would be required for more senior game design roles currently. Assume that the existing senior guys pass that test. You clear house to change the culture -- fair enough. And then because you are management, you tell the new guys to design for tournaments instead of beer/preztels. I'm really interested though; why do you think that the designers (and not management) are getting in the way of touranment-balance? Do you think management are currently saying "design for tournaments" and the developers are replying with "Lol no, I do what I want"?

Why wouldn't you try instructing the existing developers before clearing house?

 Peregrine wrote:

Fire all of the people writing the rules, burn the entire game to the ground, and hire competent game developers to start over from scratch. Changing the packaging of the rules is not going to fix anything when you still have the same incompetent morons writing those rules.

This.

It sure would be interesting to see the complete and utter disaster that would come from firing all of the game developers. Thank God these fools have no chance at ever being in a position of power within GW.

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

It is a niche job, hiring people with a proven record is perhaps not so easy for a company with a record of exploiting the fanboy nature of its staff.

 Hollow wrote:
An where is that exactly? Where "Should" they be? In your expert opinion of course.

Selling in the range of MTG, D&D, video games, etc, not settling for making a modest profit every year in a niche market.

They put out high-quality models, rules and lore. Garbage? If that's what you think. Leave.

Lolwut. The models are decent, though often uneven in quality with some real WTF designs. The lore is good, but mostly because of the excellent work done ~20-30 years ago, and recent efforts have been inconsistent at best. And the rules are an absolute dumpster fire of bad game design, a masochistic experience that you slog through because you love the fluff and models.

Also, I'm glad to see we've reached the point of "if you don't love GW STFU and GTFO". I guess you'd like this forum to be nothing but a pro-GW echo chamber?

Market leader? But you just said they are garbage? Hmm. They aren't just market leader, they literally dwarf everything and anyone in the same realm many times over.

They're the market leader, in their niche market, but not by nearly as much of a margin as you think. FFG, for example, is at minimum a strong competitor and potentially out-selling GW in their niche (getting accurate data on this is difficult). And leading a market doesn't mean your product can't be garbage. McDonalds sells a ton of terrible burgers, but I don't think anyone would ever claim that their food is actually good.

I handwave away pathetic, cry-baby BS from smelly neckbeards which this forum has too much of.

Yep, just proving my point here.

Nobody wants GW IP? Apart from all those game companies of course.

Nice job moving the goalposts there. The context was movie and tv shows, not other game companies. And in that context the GW IP is of very little value, a fact that seems pretty well confirmed by the fact that terrible movies and tv shows keep getting made but nobody has bothered to do anything with 40k.

PS: all those other game companies? I wonder why most of the people buying the GW IP are small-scale developers of phone games, with products that are weak and immediately forgotten, while the biggest names in the industry have little or no interest in 40k.

 Hollow wrote:
It sure would be interesting to see the complete and utter disaster that would come from firing all of the game developers. Thank God these fools have no chance at ever being in a position of power within GW.

I agree. I think it's a misguided solution that causes a lot of short term problems. It assumes that the designers can't design, rather than the more-probable situation where they are being told not to design for tournaments OR they are choosing not to (either can be solved by adjusting instructions from the executive).

In addition, it has a few complexities:
- You can't just sweep them out in one day. You have some things in progress, and you have some delivery dates coming up. If you sweep, you miss your dates. That's a fact.
- You can rotate in-and-out, but that's how you destroy morale - everyone knows they're on the chopping block. Additionally, you risk leaving the "cancer", as Peregrine put it, in the company.
- You need to dodge unfair termination laws. Which means you need to make them redundant, and then create new positions that are materially different. You're kind of begging for a lawsuit, since your intention is to hire the exact same positions back (just under the guise of a different name).

I'm seeing few real-world solutions in this thread.

Dont have any ideas how to move GW buissness foreward, but if i could do anything, i would figure out who was in charge of ruining the FW points in the new CA. And put the exterminatus on him.

Expand manufacturing slightly so that the market is not constantly shorted. Limit new stuff that minimally ties in with established products. Encourage cross department communication. Push for failcast to be completely replaced so that those products will actually sell. Merge the fw rules team with the gw team on aos and 40k. And stop the special rules they impose on retail so the products can reach more customers/ give up on the fence stores they obvious don't case for anyways.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Plastic Sisters of Battle. That's what I'd do.

I knew this would come up. So, hypothetical: this forum is the board of directors. You want plastic sisters instead of a new release of the lowest-tier (in terms of sales) army on the roadmap.

(This is a director speaking now)
Are you suggesting:
a) Delay the other-army release (and hence, delay the next Space Marine release - this has serious dollars implicated)
b) Replace the other-army release with sisters (hence turning an existing army effectively into legacy)
c) something else?

And why do you think that sisters will be more popular than the lowest-tier? They haven't had a release for years, surely there is no one actually collecting them now.
(/director)

Peregrine.

Settling? They are the market leader in miniture wargames. Thats the area in which they started, they want to be in and have climbed to the top and have stayed there for 25+ years.

GW are easily worth as much as Wizards of the Coast (or when they were bought by Hasbro) They are doing well in terms of having the IP feature in computer games. Games which have been generally well recieved and popular.

Creating a senario where by the IP is properly used to generate interest for film and TV would be what I would focas on if I were an executive (which is what this thread was about ,if you hadn't forgotten, due to your hate-filled fog)






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brutallica wrote:
Dont have any ideas how to move GW buissness foreward, but if i could do anything, i would figure out who was in charge of ruining the FW points in the new CA. And put the exterminatus on him.

I thought you had lost all hope and were leaving the hobby? No more worries for you.

 Peregrine wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

/thread

Fire all of the people writing the rules, burn the entire game to the ground, and hire competent game developers to start over from scratch. Changing the packaging of the rules is not going to fix anything when you still have the same incompetent morons writing those rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sorcererbob wrote:
How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

How? By looking for a proven record of successful game design. And by removing the "casual at all costs" cancer that infests GW culture so that I can hire competent game designers based on their ability to make good rules, not idiots who believe that the rules don't matter because beer and pretzels.

It just isn't an 8th ed balance thread without Peregrine complaining about something.

Sorcererbob wrote:
It assumes that the designers can't design, rather than the more-probable situation where they are being told not to design for tournaments OR they are choosing not to (either can be solved by adjusting instructions from the executive).

I think the lack of competence has been abundantly demonstrated by this point. I don't think the upper management of the company cares about tournament rules vs. non-tournament rules, or even has any clue how to tell if a particular rule is good for tournaments. And the problems with GW's poor rules are just as bad for "casual" and narrative games as they are for tournaments. There's no target market that is being served well by the current 40k rules, such that we could say that GW's rule authors are doing a good job of something and the complaints are only from people who aren't in that target market. The rules are just plain bad.

- You can't just sweep them out in one day. You have some things in progress, and you have some delivery dates coming up. If you sweep, you miss your dates. That's a fact.

This is not really a problem. Burning the whole thing to the ground implies canceling all in-progress work, which would be redundant anyway with a new edition coming.

- You need to dodge unfair termination laws. Which means you need to make them redundant, and then create new positions that are materially different. You're kind of begging for a lawsuit, since your intention is to hire the exact same positions back (just under the guise of a different name).

I don't see why this would be a problem. Firing people for poor performance is always ok. You aren't firing them for discriminatory reasons or anything, you're just deciding that the work they are producing is not good enough and you're not going to keep paying them for it.

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
And stop the special rules they impose on retail so the products can reach more customers/

This resonates with me. I have to wonder if part of the current strategy is "cut out the middle man, make as many direct sales as possible through web channels".

 Hollow wrote:


I thought you had lost all hope and were leaving the hobby? No more worries for you.

I was taking a break yes, i can still write on dakkadakka as i please. And its a bonus that it annoys you.

 kastelen wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

/thread

Fire all of the people writing the rules, burn the entire game to the ground, and hire competent game developers to start over from scratch. Changing the packaging of the rules is not going to fix anything when you still have the same incompetent morons writing those rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sorcererbob wrote:
How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

How? By looking for a proven record of successful game design. And by removing the "casual at all costs" cancer that infests GW culture so that I can hire competent game designers based on their ability to make good rules, not idiots who believe that the rules don't matter because beer and pretzels.

It just isn't an 8th ed balance thread without Peregrine complaining about something.

Isn't that kinda the point though? It ISN'T an 8th edition balance thread. It a completely different topic (a good one I might add) which is being swamped by his negativity. It seems to me he would be doing himself a favour if he stopped with GW and 40k considering he hates it so much. (would be nice for the forum as well, to be rid of the constant moaning)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brutallica wrote:

 Hollow wrote:


I thought you had lost all hope and were leaving the hobby? No more worries for you.

I was taking a break yes, i can still write on dakkadakka as i please. And its a bonus that it annoys you.

It doesn't annoy me at all. I literally just came from the thread where you said you are going to flounce and here you are posting away about 40k. Not really sure what 'Taking a break' means?

But your moaning isnt helping much either Hollow, what makes you entitled to cry as the only one?


Yes it annoys you. Comeon, you dont even know what taking a break means

Basically:

* Hire better designers who actually use math/formulas to determine what works.
* Complete an app like War Room for Warmachine/Hordes that allows army building and has unit datasheets for a fee (either flat fee or subscription)
* Go to AOS model for units (i.e. datasheets are freely available), charge for additional things and focus on supplements to enhance the game, not "required" purchases to play.
* Rework the paint range to use dropper bottles, maybe partner with Vallejo.
* Move from the GW brick and mortar style to more of a franchise; give managers more freedom and flexibility to have more room, and support stores to have more like the hobby centers of old and less like an Apple store. Continue to open communication with independent retailers to stock and support the game.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:
- You need to dodge unfair termination laws. Which means you need to make them redundant, and then create new positions that are materially different. You're kind of begging for a lawsuit, since your intention is to hire the exact same positions back (just under the guise of a different name).

I don't see why this would be a problem. Firing people for poor performance is always ok. You aren't firing them for discriminatory reasons or anything, you're just deciding that the work they are producing is not good enough and you're not going to keep paying them for it.

The problem with performance management is that it takes a long time. In most companies it will be a conversation, followed by a period of months where you're performance-managing them. And then finally you can say "you didn't meet your objectives, your'e out". You can't just march them. And if you put an entire team on performance management at once, it's going to look a lot like the executives have unreasonable expectations. I'm not saying that you can't dodge the lawsuit, just that you're creating ambiguity because of the context.

Typically a performance management period would go for 6 months (in my experience). Let's say it's 3 months in this case. You've deleted everything in progress. You have a team for 3 months. Are you hiring the new team in that time? Or just idling the company for 3 months? If you're hiring the new team, what are you saying to the existing about their ability to get through performance management?

I don't mean to knit-pick, but these are real-world considerations.

Wayniac wrote:
Basically:

* Hire better designers who actually use math/formulas to determine what works.
* Complete an app like War Room for Warmachine/Hordes that allows army building and has unit datasheets for a fee (either flat fee or subscription)
* Go to AOS model for units (i.e. datasheets are freely available), charge for additional things and focus on supplements to enhance the game, not "required" purchases to play.
* Rework the paint range to use dropper bottles, maybe partner with Vallejo.
* Move from the GW brick and mortar style to more of a franchise; give managers more freedom and flexibility to have more room, and support stores to have more like the hobby centers of old and less like an Apple store. Continue to open communication with independent retailers to stock and support the game.

I'm still getting around to painting my 1 year old models so I don't have an opinion on it. Apart from that, this seems reasonable as long as it doesn't cause a giant wave of firing in GW's staff.



I'd add better prices for Australia and NZ.

 Hollow wrote:
Settling? They are the market leader in miniture wargames. Thats the area in which they started, they want to be in and have climbed to the top and have stayed there for 25+ years.

Being the market leader means nothing. If your market is a tiny niche then you still have room to grow, by expanding into a larger market.

GW are easily worth as much as Wizards of the Coast (or when they were bought by Hasbro) They are doing well in terms of having the IP feature in computer games. Games which have been generally well recieved and popular.

Lolwut. Are you seriously going to compare GW of 2017 to WOTC of 20 years ago?

And no, GW is not doing well in having their IP in computer games. The Warhammer: Total War game is the only major game they've had, everything else has been low-budget phone games with little or no presence in the market. Where is EA doing a Battlefront: 40k game on the scale of their Star Wars game?

Creating a senario where by the IP is properly used to generate interest for film and TV would be what I would focas on if I were an executive

As I said, that's an effort where you are doomed to failure. 40k is just not a viable IP for that. The creative goals of a game setting and a film/tv story are widely divergent. 40k is pretty good at the former, but terrible at the latter. And any effort to change the situation runs right into the problem that GW's IP has very little, if anything, that is original in design. Ripping off other IP works fine if your goal is to make a background setting, but it doesn't work for selling a license. Why would anyone pay to make a 40k space marine movie when they can go straight to the same concept of "what if Heinlein's space marines found space-Jesus" and make their own 40k space marine movie in all but name without paying GW anything?

The only way to make 40k as a viable film/tv IP is to grow the company massively in scale such that its brand recognition is actually valuable to the general movie/tv market. And that's incompatible with your stated belief that GW is already doing well enough as it is now.

 Brutallica wrote:
Yes it annoys you. Comeon, you dont even know what taking a break means

No. It doesn't. I appreciate that English isn't your first lanuage and I commend you for speaking it waaaaaaay better than I can speak Danish. However, it was a rhetorical question, not a statment. I do understand what taking a break means, I was suggesting you don't (hence the question mark) but never mind. Complain away!

 Hollow wrote:
Isn't that kinda the point though? It ISN'T an 8th edition balance thread. It a completely different topic (a good one I might add) which is being swamped by his negativity. It seems to me he would be doing himself a favour if he stopped with GW and 40k considering he hates it so much. (would be nice for the forum as well, to be rid of the constant moaning)

IOW, you want the conversation in a "what would you change about GW" thread to refrain from criticizing GW, and be limited to praising what GW is already doing and saying that you wouldn't change anything. Nope.

Year 1: A new algorithm is implemented that automatically buffs poorly selling models and nerfs models that has been sold out in a while. GWs legal team is expanded and I marry a young trophy wife.

Year 2: A new kind of space marine called the Superior Marine is introduced. It is slightly bigger better and cooler than the Primaris Marines.

Year 3: Pokémon is made into a playable faction. Pikachu spam dominates the meta for almost a year, until the models are nerfed into kingdom come. For the first time in GWs history lawsuits generate more revenue than miniature sales.

Year 4: Warp boxes are introduced. They contain a random miniature from a known faction. Most of them are quite ordinary, but rare and super rare models are also present, and quickly begins to dominate the meta.

Year 5: I marry an even younger trophy wife with even bigger tits. A small country is evacuated to make room for my new palace. GW lawyers now number more than 10000 and is organized into battalions.

Year 10: GW takes over the government in the UK, and the new Ordo Legalitius runs the treasury. GW royalties amounts to more than 10% of the GDP and is for the first time referred to as tithes.

Year 100: I am enshrined in a Golden Throne in GWs headquarters in Buckingham Palace. I am artificially kept alive by a steady stream of botox-infused trophy-wives. The cycle is complete.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Isn't that kinda the point though? It ISN'T an 8th edition balance thread. It a completely different topic (a good one I might add) which is being swamped by his negativity. It seems to me he would be doing himself a favour if he stopped with GW and 40k considering he hates it so much. (would be nice for the forum as well, to be rid of the constant moaning)

IOW, you want the conversation in a "what would you change about GW" thread to refrain from criticizing GW, and be limited to praising what GW is already doing and saying that you wouldn't change anything. Nope.

No. I just think that "I'd fire everyone and start from scratch because everythings rubbish and they're all clueless morons! WaaaaWaaaa!" isn't constructive or interesting. It's dull.

Well to get back on track here. I would gather the Rules writers together and have numerous meetings on where the direction of the game needs to go and on how we should go about making the game more balanced. Anyone who thinks 8th is balanced is lying to themselves.

I would also hire anywhere from 100-1,000 game testers for the low low price of NOTHING.

Anyone here would be willing to spend a day playing 40k if GW offered them the early rules or maybe a new model or two. GW has so many untapped resources in its gaming community that it is astounding.

Next I would work to merchandise the crap out of 40K. The fact that they don't is beyond me.

Finally, I would hire a game designer for each faction that plays that faction and LOVES that faction and use them as the stick to measure new rules on. No army should have to spend an entire edition (in orkz case 3-4) on the shelf because the design team either doesn't understand the army or just doesn't care.

pismakron wrote:

Year 4: Warp boxes are introduced. They contain a random miniature from a known faction. Most of them are quite ordinary, but rare and super rare models are also present, and quickly begins to dominate the meta.

I get that you're being facetious. I actually think this one is a pretty good idea. $10 for a mystery model. You know the faction ahead of time. Bonus points if it's tied to a game of 1-3 models to get new people interested (I vaguely recall there was a game at that scale around the turn of the century?).

 Hollow wrote:

 Brutallica wrote:
Yes it annoys you. Comeon, you dont even know what taking a break means

No. It doesn't. I appreciate that English isn't your first lanuage and a commend you for speaking it waaaaaaay better than I can speak Danish. However, it was a rhetorical question, not a statment. I do understand what taking a break means, I was suggesting you don't (hence the question mark) but never mind. Complain away!

Oh i will complain away indeed, just to annoy you

SemperMortis wrote:

Finally, I would hire a game designer for each faction that plays that faction and LOVES that faction and use them as the stick to measure new rules on. No army should have to spend an entire edition (in orkz case 3-4) on the shelf because the design team either doesn't understand the army or just doesn't care.

Good ideas, this one in particular has always made me wonder. I'm hoping the recent cups, badges and journal books are a step in this direction.

 Hollow wrote:
No. I just think that "I'd fire everyone and start from scratch because everythings rubbish and they're all clueless morons! WaaaaWaaaa!" isn't constructive or interesting. It's dull.

It is, however, accurate. GW's rules are terrible, to the point that a complete redesign from scratch is necessary, and their authors show no signs whatsoever of being capable of doing better. Worse, they have demonstrated a "casual at all costs" attitude towards the rules, where yelling "beer and pretzels, forge a narrative" is an excuse for printing bad rules (which are also bad for casual players, btw) and blaming competitive players for having fun the wrong way. This is a company-wide problem, and anything short of firing everyone is just delaying the inevitable. It would be far better to fire everyone up front and admit that you're starting over than to keep pushing out broken rules until you finally acknowledge that the process isn't working and fire everyone.

Sorcererbob wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

The rules team isn't paid enough to attract or keep quality people.

They need to accept the value of the rules quality to the business, increase the budget for the rules team (by an amount that really isn't massive compared to their profit) and recruit some people with a proven track record. At minimum the rules team needs an excellent manager with industry-specific experience but a clean sweep (including Jervis) would be better.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

The current rules team isn't paid enough to attract or keep quality people.

no offense but how much do they need to be paid? This forum itself is a free tool GW could utilize to develop rules for each faction.

Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:
This forum itself is a free tool GW could utilize to develop rules for each faction.

That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

SemperMortis wrote:

no offense but how much do they need to be paid? This forum itself is a free tool GW could utilize to develop rules for each faction.

So your plan is to employ people with zero experience writing rules, pay them about the same as a bus driver and then have them ransack forums for other people's ideas to combine into rules? How is this different to what's already happening?

SemperMortis wrote:
Finally, I would hire a game designer for each faction that plays that faction and LOVES that faction and use them as the stick to measure new rules on. No army should have to spend an entire edition (in orkz case 3-4) on the shelf because the design team either doesn't understand the army or just doesn't care.

I agree with all of the things you said. I want to drill down on this one though, if you don't mind. I think it has value, but I want to understand the execution.

I wonder how large the design team is. I can't imagine there are more than a half-dozen game designers currently. How many factions are there? 15? And we're going to fill the gap. Let's say we need to hire 6 people. I don't actually know how much a game designer costs. Let's assume you get them at cutthroat rates because you'll find people who love the game. So you get them for 60k AUD (that's graduate wages in most fields here). You're saying we should spend $360k AUD per year. Plus plus plus -- they'll want raises and bonuses and training and other things. Call it 400k AUD -- I think that's a low estimate.

(Playing the part of a director)
What do I get for my investment?

Sorcererbob wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Finally, I would hire a game designer for each faction that plays that faction and LOVES that faction and use them as the stick to measure new rules on. No army should have to spend an entire edition (in orkz case 3-4) on the shelf because the design team either doesn't understand the army or just doesn't care.

I agree with all of the things you said. I want to drill down on this one though, if you don't mind. I think it has value, but I want to understand the execution.

I wonder how large the design team is. I can't imagine there are more than a half-dozen game designers currently. How many factions are there? 15? And we're going to fill the gap. Let's say we need to hire 6 people. I don't actually know how much a game designer costs. Let's assume you get them at cutthroat rates because you'll find people who love the game. So you get them for 60k AUD (that's graduate wages in most fields here). You're saying we should spend $360k AUD per year. Plus plus plus -- they'll want raises and bonuses and training and other things. Call it 400k AUD -- I think that's a low estimate.

(Playing the part of a director)
What do I get for my investment?

People who will stick with their army and warhammer in general for a longer time, less veteran players leaving because of OP or UP things and new players arriving because of the good things that they have (hopefully) heard.

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:
This forum itself is a free tool GW could utilize to develop rules for each faction.

That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

haha, I spent years as an analyst, its fairly easy to data mine and pull the gems from the trash. Also, I have seen a number of really good ideas in here that went over board due to fanboyism. Taking those and tweaking and adjusting would be a lot easier then doing it yourself, or hiring a development team to do it all.

Let me put it this way, when HQMC was fielding ideas for new gear they would send out teams to AD units in the states and even deployed who would give them design ideas, requirements and needs. The teams would come back, analyze the data and then either build or buy the required gear. GW could do the very same thing for low cost compared to developing a new rule/unit and having it fail spectacularly. (Looking at you Stompa/Nauts).

SemperMortis wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

What do I get for my investment?

People who will stick with their army and warhammer in general for a longer time, less veteran players leaving because of OP or UP things and new players arriving because of the good things that they have (hopefully) heard.

(I'm still being a director)
You're promising balance. How will you balance things by just having more people doing the designing? If anything, would we not be creating a "too many chefs in the kitchen" situation?
I like the idea of people sticking with us for longer, but your argument is premised on balance. You've not demonstrated how hiring more people achieves that.

Sorcererbob wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Finally, I would hire a game designer for each faction that plays that faction and LOVES that faction and use them as the stick to measure new rules on. No army should have to spend an entire edition (in orkz case 3-4) on the shelf because the design team either doesn't understand the army or just doesn't care.

I agree with all of the things you said. I want to drill down on this one though, if you don't mind. I think it has value, but I want to understand the execution.

I wonder how large the design team is. I can't imagine there are more than a half-dozen game designers currently. How many factions are there? 15? And we're going to fill the gap. Let's say we need to hire 6 people. I don't actually know how much a game designer costs. Let's assume you get them at cutthroat rates because you'll find people who love the game. So you get them for 60k AUD (that's graduate wages in most fields here). You're saying we should spend $360k AUD per year. Plus plus plus -- they'll want raises and bonuses and training and other things. Call it 400k AUD -- I think that's a low estimate.

(Playing the part of a director)
What do I get for my investment?

Well for starters you get a happier fanbase, and a happy fanbase is more willingly to part with their disposable income then an unhappy fanbase. I know several players in my local area, myself included, who haven't bought a single GW model in over a year. We purchase from 3rd party or people quitting. We support our local store by buying other items and such. SO if you managed to make people happy you would likely increase your profits.

From a business perspective I'm not sure there's much I would change as they're making money pretty damn effectively right now.

Sure the game is nothing special, but that's borderline irrelevant to them if sales are good. Their focus is not on a balanced game, etc. It's about pushing plastic - something they do pretty well.

Sorcererbob wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

What do I get for my investment?

People who will stick with their army and warhammer in general for a longer time, less veteran players leaving because of OP or UP things and new players arriving because of the good things that they have (hopefully) heard.

(I'm still being a director)
You're promising balance. How will you balance things by just having more people doing the designing? If anything, would we not be creating a "too many chefs in the kitchen" situation?
I like the idea of people sticking with us for longer, but your argument is premised on balance. You've not demonstrated how hiring more people achieves that.

Mathhammer and looking at what the competitive community says are 'acceptable' for point cost per model and point cost per piece of wargear. If more people are in the office who each like a certain army, assuming that there is a 'neutral party' in the rules team, then rules will be given to the 'neutral party' faster which will hopefully be more balanced. It's a risk but it could pay out well.

SemperMortis wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

What do I get for my investment?

Well for starters you get a happier fanbase, and a happy fanbase is more willingly to part with their disposable income then an unhappy fanbase. I know several players in my local area, myself included, who haven't bought a single GW model in over a year. We purchase from 3rd party or people quitting. We support our local store by buying other items and such. SO if you managed to make people happy you would likely increase your profits.

You've made some good points, and I personally agree that a happy fanbase will spend money. I'm less convinced that people buy from other parties because they're unhappy with GW. To be honest I think the more likely motivators are cost (some 3rd parties are strictly cheaper than the GW web store) and loyalty. I think the key question is therefore: how do we get them buying from us INSTEAD of 3rd party brick-and-mortar? Sadly, I think the answer to that question is the reason they have a bunch of special rules for 3rd parties.

I'm guessing that 3rd party online is a lost cause; people will either buy from GW because it's the manufacturer, or they'll buy the cheapest. And GW won't compete on price for their own goods.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kastelen wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

What do I get for my investment?

People who will stick with their army and warhammer in general for a longer time, less veteran players leaving because of OP or UP things and new players arriving because of the good things that they have (hopefully) heard.

(I'm still being a director)
You're promising balance. How will you balance things by just having more people doing the designing? If anything, would we not be creating a "too many chefs in the kitchen" situation?
I like the idea of people sticking with us for longer, but your argument is premised on balance. You've not demonstrated how hiring more people achieves that.

Mathhammer and looking at what the competitive community says are 'acceptable' for point cost per model and point cost per piece of wargear. If more people are in the office who each like a certain army, assuming that there is a 'neutral party' in the rules team, then rules will be given to the 'neutral party' faster which will hopefully be more balanced. It's a risk but it could pay out well.

(i'm still being the Devil's advocate director)
If I've understood what you've said, you want to use a combination of maths and consensus to determine balance. Those suggestions appear to be counter-intuitive when put together, but I'm going to assume that you can find a way to make them mesh well. The part I'm missing is why you need someone who loves the faction to do this -- why do we need to spend the money?
(/director)

I've really enjoyed this thread. Thanks all for your contribution. I'm going to sleep now -- I'm sure I'll have some great ideas to read when I wake up!

Sorcererbob wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

What do I get for my investment?

Well for starters you get a happier fanbase, and a happy fanbase is more willingly to part with their disposable income then an unhappy fanbase. I know several players in my local area, myself included, who haven't bought a single GW model in over a year. We purchase from 3rd party or people quitting. We support our local store by buying other items and such. SO if you managed to make people happy you would likely increase your profits.

You've made some good points, and I personally agree that a happy fanbase will spend money. I'm less convinced that people buy from other parties because they're unhappy with GW. To be honest I think the more likely motivators are cost (some 3rd parties are strictly cheaper than the GW web store) and loyalty. I think the key question is therefore: how do we get them buying from us INSTEAD of 3rd party brick-and-mortar? Sadly, I think the answer to that question is the reason they have a bunch of special rules for 3rd parties.

I'm guessing that 3rd party online is a lost cause; people will either buy from GW because it's the manufacturer, or they'll buy the cheapest. And GW won't compete on price for their own goods.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kastelen wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

What do I get for my investment?

People who will stick with their army and warhammer in general for a longer time, less veteran players leaving because of OP or UP things and new players arriving because of the good things that they have (hopefully) heard.

(I'm still being a director)
You're promising balance. How will you balance things by just having more people doing the designing? If anything, would we not be creating a "too many chefs in the kitchen" situation?
I like the idea of people sticking with us for longer, but your argument is premised on balance. You've not demonstrated how hiring more people achieves that.

Mathhammer and looking at what the competitive community says are 'acceptable' for point cost per model and point cost per piece of wargear. If more people are in the office who each like a certain army, assuming that there is a 'neutral party' in the rules team, then rules will be given to the 'neutral party' faster which will hopefully be more balanced. It's a risk but it could pay out well.

(i'm still being the Devil's advocate director)
If I've understood what you've said, you want to use a combination of maths and consensus to determine balance. Those suggestions appear to be counter-intuitive when put together, but I'm going to assume that you can find a way to make them mesh well. The part I'm missing is why you need someone who loves the faction to do this -- why do we need to spend the money?

Because why would someone who either isn't invested in their job or loves a completely different army try their best to make the army they're working on fun to play with and against?

 Hollow wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Isn't that kinda the point though? It ISN'T an 8th edition balance thread. It a completely different topic (a good one I might add) which is being swamped by his negativity. It seems to me he would be doing himself a favour if he stopped with GW and 40k considering he hates it so much. (would be nice for the forum as well, to be rid of the constant moaning)

IOW, you want the conversation in a "what would you change about GW" thread to refrain from criticizing GW, and be limited to praising what GW is already doing and saying that you wouldn't change anything. Nope.

No. I just think that "I'd fire everyone and start from scratch because everythings rubbish and they're all clueless morons! WaaaaWaaaa!" isn't constructive or interesting. It's dull.

No its business plain and simple if you have staff constantly making mistakes that upset customers and cost the company money you don't leave them alone you give them a chance to improve and if that does not work you fire them.

8th was the chance to improve and they've messed it up again so they'd get their notice and we'd then go on aggressively recruiting the best most experienced rules writers we could, then we'd ask the community to bear with us as we work to deliver a game worth playing giving full transparency.

No one has a right to a job if you can't do it you should lose it.

It's been said before and I'll say it again. I think a price reduction could really help. I know the model has been gone over before and the price point is optimized BUT I just can't justify $47 for a box of plastic soldiers. I love the hobby and usually limit myself to about 1 purchase a year. That being said if that price was cut in half I would but waaaay more. I would probably even have more then one army.

Sorcererbob wrote:

(I'm still being a director)
You're promising balance. How will you balance things by just having more people doing the designing? If anything, would we not be creating a "too many chefs in the kitchen" situation?
I like the idea of people sticking with us for longer, but your argument is premised on balance. You've not demonstrated how hiring more people achieves that.

I think the main thing to look to here would be Magic. Magic sets are designed in two stages. They have a team of people whose job is to come up with fun cards and then a team of people whose job is to put mana costs on those cards and tweak them so that those cards produce a solid competitive game (Hearthstone does something similar). These are very different skills. Speaking way too broadly, you want creative types determining how it feels to play your game and you want analytical types deciding exactly what numbers to attach to everything to make the game fair. A common problem game designers have is that they don't appreciate the value of the analytic side of things -- people tend to become game designers through the creative side of the business -- and think that they're doing a reasonable job in this area when actually much better results are possible. To be fair, you see the reverse tendency a lot too (very analytically-minded people who have awful creative instincts) but they tend to be shitposters on forums rather than game designers.

This is often a hard problem for game companies to even realize they have, because often they just don't have any competent people in a position to be listened to. Executives are not by-and-large the smartest people, and many of them won't have a very deep understanding of the business they're running, so they won't even grasp that there's an issue here. Game designers are, as I said, mostly on the creative side of things, and lack the mathematical talent and intuition to understand or address balance problems. To be clear, I'm not saying that they're just morons. Most people, in general, would be at least as bad at this. Relatively few people are suited to the job. The big problem is that decision-makers don't even understand that it's possible to be a lot better at the job -- this is basically Dunning-Kruger. In fairness, I don't know what GW pays game designers. I know that Magic gets away with underpaying for talent because it's a popular game among computer programmers, mathematicians, etc. So maybe GW is fully aware that they could hire mathematically competent people to do a much better job balancing the game but just doesn't think it makes sense to offer what would be necessary to tempt these people away from what they're doing now.

Like, it's pretty striking just how obvious imbalances in 8th have been so far. Within days of the indices leaking, people had pegged Guilliman, Razorbacks, Stormravens, Celestine, Manticores, and Scions as really good. It was immediately clear that hordes had gotten a big buff, and people suspected that Guard were going to be very strong. It's really clear that a relatively large number of people had a very, very high hit rate with respect to picking out problem units without even doing any playtesting at all. The community's big Day 1 misses include very few actual errors and more simple overlooking of obscure units -- nobody was really combing through the FW R&H list and analyzing Malefic Lords, and nobody suspected that Razorwing Flocks might actually be a useful unit. The story of 8th so far has been a story about how incredibly useful mathhammer is for figuring out what's good. And so it's very hard not to think that GW lacks people with any talent for this, or else I guess one of the conspiracy theories is right and they're doing it on purpose for whatever reason.

So I actually have experience with management. Here's my free advice to GW:

1. You do need to clean house at the rules team and get some more talent. You don't want to just fire everyone, but you need to see if there are any patterns of unpopular rules coming out of the same person or people. When you get new talent, don't grab new kids out of college. Poach people from Wizards, FFG, e.t.c. Yes, this means you have to pay them more but there's a reason for that.

2. Culture shift. For a long time the attitude was "we make toys and rules are ancillary". This artificially limits your market share because people only want to buy so many toys. You have much greater potential if you instead "make a game" and people want to buy expansions/add-ons. Game first, models second.

3. GW already is promoting more of an 'esports' vibe and attitude towards tournaments but they should step it up. Do what Phreak from Riot did and just have 2-4 people in the company pull shift as casters and open up a streaming channel on YouTube and Warhammer Community. Get an egghead to pull a Day9 with Newbie Tuesday videos and Wednesday Rules Questions via live stream. This would cost very little and greatly promotes player activity (and thus spending).

4. Get more ancillary merch going. Imperial jackets, Chaos hoodies, e.t.c. Even Bioware is doing this with some success and they're about as tone deaf as current GW. You can license production here to a 3rd party.

5. Don't do Codexes/CA for revenue if you're gonna make this many. Make a subscription model instead. Do about half price of a standard MMO subscription (sales team should be able to get an exact number after some research). Do books only as 'made to order' so you don't have excess inventory. That or release fewer books per year.

6. Relic really blew your good will in video games with the disaster of DoW3. You've still got some with Mortal Empires on Total War at least, but you're going to need something big to come back on this. RTS's are always a small market and you've lost the good will for a RPG (plus open world sandboxes are more popular right now). Bethesda is happily taking licenses right now, it might be time to look into a 40k sandbox RPG with them. You WILL have to loosen the reigns on your IP a bit to get something with quality though.

7. Novels are doing good. Maybe don't hire writer's internally so much but you're mostly O.K. here. Maybe do a quick cash grab anthology of short stories by asking famous sci-fi writers to each contribute one (and pay them their normal rates for it, obviously).

8. Do 'mystery models' where players can gift each other units. Charge your base rate for a normal 5 unit troop squad. That's what most people will get so you're fine. Just make sure like .1% gets a Primarch or Knight and people will be all over it. Remember, what is going out isn't random or a mystery to you.

9. Stay away from movies and TV for now. Hasn't worked well and you need a break to let good will and demand come.

10. FLGS's are closing and people need places to play. Building your own is way too expensive. Tournaments are the cheap and easy answer. Keep aggressively sponsoring them and consider holding a yearly 'worldcup' of your own at GW stores.

Implement stricter play testing. 8th is in many ways better then 7th, but also a lot worse.

Realistically speaking?

-Contemplate the cost-benefit tradeoffs of keeping one-man brick-and-mortar stores versus subsidizing third-party local game stores/clubs/conventions. GW stores are *small*, and have the reputation of being a glorified daycare.
-Contemplate the cost-benefit analysis of making the rules free online. While GW loses a potential profit vector, rules tend to be pirated with remarkable ease anyway, and you don't have to worry about supplier goofs, last-minute edits/day 1 FAQs, etc.
-Revisit legal policies. At the least, be more forthright about certain decisions. If you admit "Imperial Guard was not trademarkable and our business is at risk of being completely undercut, and we understand if people keep calling them Guard," I would *hope* players are more understanding or at least appreciative. Saying "it's their High Gothic Name. No really," makes GW look shifty and disrespectful of their fanbase. Remember the "your dudes" factor. People will buy and trade for bitz to convert stuff; move away from stuff like "A Primaris Captain can only take a Power Sword, a Deathwatch Captain cannot take a Bike," etc.
-Likewise, focus on cleaning up and consolodating the old minis range rather than going for continuual new releases. Plastic Obliterator/Mutilator dual-kits, updated Warbuggies, etc. There's a lot of ancient stuff that easily dissuades an army from being popular.
-Feel free to have a "hall of fame" or a "hall of shame", where certain "oops" moments are given time to shine. Heck, you could jokingly award Golden Snotling for the funniest unintended rules interaction to players that discover the bug *and* provide the best fix.

I would AoS 40K and reboot the community.

pismakron wrote:
Year 1: A new algorithm is implemented that automatically buffs poorly selling models and nerfs models that has been sold out in a while. GWs legal team is expanded and I marry a young trophy wife.

Year 2: A new kind of space marine called the Superior Marine is introduced. It is slightly bigger better and cooler than the Primaris Marines.

Year 3: Pokémon is made into a playable faction. Pikachu spam dominates the meta for almost a year, until the models are nerfed into kingdom come. For the first time in GWs history lawsuits generate more revenue than miniature sales.

Year 4: Warp boxes are introduced. They contain a random miniature from a known faction. Most of them are quite ordinary, but rare and super rare models are also present, and quickly begins to dominate the meta.

Year 5: I marry an even younger trophy wife with even bigger tits. A small country is evacuated to make room for my new palace. GW lawyers now number more than 10000 and is organized into battalions.

Year 10: GW takes over the government in the UK, and the new Ordo Legalitius runs the treasury. GW royalties amounts to more than 10% of the GDP and is for the first time referred to as tithes.

Year 100: I am enshrined in a Golden Throne in GWs headquarters in Buckingham Palace. I am artificially kept alive by a steady stream of botox-infused trophy-wives. The cycle is complete.

Best idea in the thread so far.

What I would do? Well, apart from cutting myself a big fat paycheck, I would create a cool new game set in the Warhammer world. It is an amazing setting and a big shame that they dropped it for the silly, over-the-top drivel of AoS. I like my fantasy dark and gritty.

Nothing. They're gonna whine no matter what you do. Leave'em hanging and laugh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:
This forum itself is a free tool GW could utilize to develop rules for each faction.

That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

haha, I spent years as an analyst, its fairly easy to data mine and pull the gems from the trash. Also, I have seen a number of really good ideas in here that went over board due to fanboyism. Taking those and tweaking and adjusting would be a lot easier then doing it yourself, or hiring a development team to do it all.

Let me put it this way, when HQMC was fielding ideas for new gear they would send out teams to AD units in the states and even deployed who would give them design ideas, requirements and needs. The teams would come back, analyze the data and then either build or buy the required gear. GW could do the very same thing for low cost compared to developing a new rule/unit and having it fail spectacularly. (Looking at you Stompa/Nauts).

This is apples to oranges. The process you applied is parsing data of people who are all working to accomplish the same or highly similar tasks as efficiently as possible.

How would you apply the same process when every single individual had wildly different goals and specifications from every other person, even within the same faction. Or better yet, when they lie to you to try and get something extra for themselves or take something away from who they don't like.

The process you described is taking a rough bellcurve of responses and evaluating them for implementability.

What it would be in 40k is a million cometely unrelated (and/or falsified) data-points screaming past your head into the finest example of 'true random' that you could ever hope for.

I am behind Peregrine on this one.
Maybe I am getting old, and expect more.
But, GW just seems to never miss a chance to disappoint.
The new Chapter Approved, for example.

Six months after release, and now basic rules cost 80USD PLUS codex and/or index... 110-150bux, more or less.
That is before buying a single HQ blister for 30bux.
Eek.

And the rules are garbage.
I would be ashamed, if I were a GW executive,
but then again, I was not a bizniz major, so maybe I am missing something important...

This guy also has some good ideas, I think:

Wayniac wrote:
Basically:

* Hire better designers who actually use math/formulas to determine what works.
* Complete an app like War Room for Warmachine/Hordes that allows army building and has unit datasheets for a fee (either flat fee or subscription)
* Go to AOS model for units (i.e. datasheets are freely available), charge for additional things and focus on supplements to enhance the game, not "required" purchases to play.
* Rework the paint range to use dropper bottles, maybe partner with Vallejo.
* Move from the GW brick and mortar style to more of a franchise; give managers more freedom and flexibility to have more room, and support stores to have more like the hobby centers of old and less like an Apple store. Continue to open communication with independent retailers to stock and support the game.

But, frankly, I would get to work on 9th edition, make sure it works, and sell it as a complete rulebook in soft and hardcover (maybe 30 and 50bux, respectively, sure... with a coupon for a model or a discount with the hardback maybe?), that employs the codices that will have been released by then, with updates to points and abilities and so on freely available until a new codex is ready, each of which for less than 20bux.
Then, I would update that complete rulebook once a year, but post changes to the original online for free download.
People buy the new book for convenience, and cuz if they do then they get a voucher for a special model and/or discount from GW Direct or something to that effect.

Then, I would talk to the CAD workers about scale and detail, consider doing more modeling-enthusiast targeted releases (multi-pose kits, upgrade bits kits) and so on.
And, I would fire the guy who made their new into battle board thing 3'3" x 5'4" or whatever the it is. Why not 4x4? Something standard? Just, silliness.

I would Change little at first, other than hiring a playtest team, proof readers.

I'd hire a team of technical writers and every rule book would have to go through them. They'd be in charge of checking new rule books against existing ones and coordinating the writing to give the rules a singular voice, as opposed to each writer writing in a vacuum.

I'd also stop trying to squeeze every possible dollar out of rulebooks. I'd have the philosophy that if you make great rules, and make them readily available, people will buy far more miniatures.

Example, the abortion that is the necromunda gang war book. Missing key weapon stats, obviously meant to be part of the core rule book, wasn't even proof read, and makes no sense why it exists. Was obviously a rushed cash grab. 2nd example, chapter approved. Why is GW charging to patch their game?

But I work with mostly MBAs at a giant evil mega corp, and I can safely say that I've never once in my life seen an MBA have a decent idea because that's the degree people who don't have any talents or intelligence, but want to make money anyway, get. So none of this is shocking.

First of all stop take a deep breath and realise that we actually have competitors now. Look at what they offer and how they've got started. First thing to do because of this bring back Specalist Games more in house options to provide the variety that these competitors. Next realise we need to be competitive on price point with people like Osprey and Reaper. Reaper we can charge more than by being hard plastic and multi-part o.k. do that but make sure the price isn't so different that Reaper starts looking a better option. Also look at whether board game plastic is a better option than finecast and pass the saving on. If I can sell 2 boxes of the same product at £30 or 4 at £25 or 10 at £10 I want the 4 at £25. Looking at providing pocket money options like the old blister packs at less than £10 as well. Also accept that if I'm marketing for kids I need kids prices and production values (simple models/rules/painting) if I'm marketing for Adults I can charge Adult prices but I need Adult production values.

I really like the idea of segregating people who create thematic rules from people who do technical writing from people who determine unit value by math-hammer. Those strike me as three distinct disciplines. Those teams would surely work closely together under a product leader of some sort, but I think making the roles distinct allows each person to focus-on and really nail their specialty.

Simplify the product line - drop whatever the lowest-played army is right now, shore up existing armies by dropping whatever sells least within them.

Future production should be very simple - those easy-build kits should become the norm. Makes the hobby more accessible to people who don't model / don't have an interest in modeling. Makes rules writing easier, as if we don't cast it in the kits, you can't use it.

Simplify the rules - a 10 year old should be able to pick up the BRB and be ready to play inside of an hour.

M.

 Infantryman wrote:
Simplify the product line - drop whatever the lowest-played army is right now, shore up existing armies by dropping whatever sells least within them.

Future production should be very simple - those easy-build kits should become the norm. Makes the hobby more accessible to people who don't model / don't have an interest in modeling. Makes rules writing easier, as if we don't cast it in the kits, you can't use it.

Simplify the rules - a 10 year old should be able to pick up the BRB and be ready to play inside of an hour.

M.

So.... SOB, admech and GSC?

Please don't put Infantryman at charge

Sorcererbob wrote:
(This is a director speaking now)
Are you suggesting:
a) Delay the other-army release (and hence, delay the next Space Marine release - this has serious dollars implicated)
b) Replace the other-army release with sisters (hence turning an existing army effectively into legacy)
c) something else?

a).
Or c) if you like c) better. I think c) is quite nice actually. Like, say, release both stuff at the same time or something? Who knows? That's what I love about c), it's the whole uncertainty of it!

Sorcererbob wrote:
And why do you think that sisters will be more popular than the lowest-tier? They haven't had a release for years, surely there is no one actually collecting them now.

If noone is collecting them already it means every one will have to buy a full army rather than just a handful of new models. Nice! More moneys for the moneys god, more pounds for the throne of GW!

I was applying real-world, adult, and practical analysis to the proposal of plastic sisters. The response indicates to me that we’re not going to have a constructive conversation on this topic.

Thanks for your contribution.

Subscription to rules, and an army building app that would be used in tournaments. There is no earthly reason why people run deep into major events with illegal lists.

I would also commit to a yearly content update to each army, individually. There is no reason for years to go by between codex updates. This would be in the form of errata and would be free. Maybe it's a new psychic power. Maybe it's a new stratagem. Point is, everybody gets something once a year.

Were I a director I'd look at pushing the following initiatives:

Expanding the customer base
Nerd stuff is big right now. I'd look at how WotC has expanded the D&D brand. Look at the many "watch people play D&D" streams out there and how popular they are. So I'd look at ways to incentivize that. In particular, I'd note how D&D now is seen as much more friendly to women than it used to be, and emulate some of those techniques. So I'd definitely put some marketing pound sterling into supporting some female faces in the hobby in various ways.

I'd also look at shifting or expanding the model range to include more female minis, both characters and troop types. I'd aim to have roughly a 50-50 split for characters and maybe 30-70 for rank-and-file-troops (but with several options for players to go all female if they so desire).

Similarly, I'd push to highlight ethnic diversity in the player base, and reflect that in the marketing material and official minis too.

GW's products still have an image of being mostly about and for white guys. There's money to be made in going beyond that. GW is already taking steps in that direction, but I'd push to accelerate it from how it's going now.

I'd also want to not get in the way of fanart and fanfic as that generates more value for the IP in my opinion.

Tournaments, Events, and Rules
I'm pretty content with what GW is doing now, from a director's point of view. The rules need to continue to shift slightly on a continual basis to encourage competitive players to keep buying new models. The trick, of course, is to make sure the churn isn't so rapid that we lose too many players along the way. Free updates might be a good way to go, but ultimately whichever way is most cost effective gets my support (and is up to the executive team, not a director). As a player I know that the rule update propagation effort has more pain points than necessary, but as a director I don't see a significant impact on operations - though I could be persuaded otherwise.

I would consider providing good support for competitive tournaments as well, and I'd tend to encourage a few competing variations of tournament modifications in the vein of ITC, as that encourages greater purchases as well.

I'd also look at ways to incentivize small local tournaments on a large scale, especially if I could make them attractive to the demographics I'm looking to expand into.

However, I'd also look at providing support to other types of public events that are less head-to-head competition - more narrative focused ones for example to broaden the kind of experiences 40K provides and break down some of the competitive-or-GTFO air that surrounds the IP. Competition is good, but we want all kinds of players to buy our product.

... though all this incentivizing would have to be to be cost effective.

RPG/ Narrative Skirmish
I think the current overall strategy of moving up (apocalypse) and down (small starter sets) the game scale is sound. As a piece of that I'd look into creating a minis driven narrative type game - a table top rpg could be the ticket but it doesn't have to be - that would encourage people to enter the hobby from the rpg space and buy a few minis from across our range to support their games... and then try to attract them into the core minis game once they have purchased miniatures already.

I'd repackage some of our existing products to support that strategy as well.

Stuff
I'd probably suggest pushing 40K branded tat more as well.

Digital
An army builder app would be great, but I'd recommend including a strong "connect with local players" component as well, to help people get together. Ultimately, being part of a community improves both recruitment of new players and retention and - I expect - drives the purchase of terrain items (people never playing will still buy minis for netlists, but people tend to buy terrain mostly when they actively play I expect).

Terrain
I'd make sure that the use of terrain is well integrated into the rules and supported with product. There's potential to sell more there and provide better game experiences as well.

... that's what I'd do if I were a GW director. This is not exactly the same as what I'd prefer as a player, though there is some overlap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Infantryman wrote:
Simplify the product line - drop whatever the lowest-played army is right now, shore up existing armies by dropping whatever sells least within them.

Future production should be very simple - those easy-build kits should become the norm. Makes the hobby more accessible to people who don't model / don't have an interest in modeling. Makes rules writing easier, as if we don't cast it in the kits, you can't use it.

Simplify the rules - a 10 year old should be able to pick up the BRB and be ready to play inside of an hour.

M.

I'd actually argue against that.

I mean, I'm not against the idea that a 10 year old should be able to pick up the game and get into it. We definitely should have such a product, but I'd prefer to position it as a gateway to the larger more complex game. I reckon that the depth of the commitment (and I mean that in a cash sense) to our IP is partially derived from the complexity. Tinkering with lists, considering and arguing builds, and all that stuff is one of the foundations of customer loyalty. Also, a more complex system (both in terms of rules and model options) allow us to keep balance churn going at a slow but constant rate, which drives sales among our already committed customers.

Simplification sounds great, but there's a significant risk that going too hard there will backfire significantly. I think it's better in support of our main line rather than as the centre piece of our strategy. We want to avoid scenarios where our customers are "done" and have everything figured out and complexity helps keep things engaging over a longer period of time.

Light AOS on fire

Bring back Fantasy

In addition to many of the comments about better editing/proofreading and modern rules distribution systems, I'd like to see a lot more transparency behind the rules design.

Updates like chapter approved should provide a great opportunity to sit down and actually discuss the thought process behind various changes and rebalances. Explain the logic behind why something was improved or nerfed, discuss what has failed, what has succeeded, why to both of those, and the general direction intended to move the game in to learn from those failures and capitalize on those successes. Let me, as a player and consumer, know that these changes are coming from a good place.
Of course, that requires a level of openness that even the New GW (TM) doesn't seem to be too comfortable with.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Light AOS on fire

Bring back Fantasy

oh yeah, and this^^

almost forgot about that fully painted orc and goblin army in the box, on the shelf...

 jeff white wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Light AOS on fire

Bring back Fantasy

oh yeah, and this^^

almost forgot about that fully painted orc and goblin army in the box, on the shelf...

* quietly looks over to the display cabinet with 4000 points of painted Bretonnians... sigh

Not only did we never receive our turn in the sun with a shiny army book, we got retconned out of existence. AOS can feth off

Please GW, bring back Fantasy.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Remember the "your dudes" factor. People will buy and trade for bitz to convert stuff; move away from stuff like "A Primaris Captain can only take a Power Sword, a Deathwatch Captain cannot take a Bike," etc.

I think it's worth mentioning that making conversions and hunting down bits functionally required to play your army increases the barrier of entry (and therefore reduces new players) while the majority of the benefit goes to 3rd party bits sellers.

Rule book and codexes should be a loss leader, something they give away for free or through a pay wall to entice you to try out new units or different armies or games.

If you don't have to pay £25 for a codex, that's another £25 you get to spend on models, and other physical products. If you're already planning to purchase their products, then those £25 are better spent on an item which occupies shelf space. The books don't need to exist as physical copies, but the models do, and producing, transporting and storing them is a bigger expense than the cost of the books.

Add to that the advantage of a "living rule book", which is something you can only really do with a digital document, and would allow for armies to be continuously balanced and updated.

You could even tie a worldwide campaign to this digital division and publish lists for the participating factions, which would be adjusted as the campaign progressed to adapt to changing conditions, such as the Imperial side gaining an oil field or losing an important spaceport. Events such as this has marketing potential and it would let the community feel involved in the game.

 Aesthete wrote:
Were I a director I'd look at pushing the following initiatives:

{ content snipped }
.

Great post. I especially like the idea to connect local players. How many missed connection must there be? Brad thought players would be there at 11am. Steve thought they'd be there at 3pm. Neither of them get a game. Suggested name for the function/app: Battle Comms Uplink

On a separate note, some people have suggested more openness. I wonder if laying cards on the table would ultimately help or hinder. "Ok guys, we're releasing female head swaps for imperial guard because we want to attract more ladies to the game." I guess its all in the messaging. How would an announcement that goes "We're cutting GSC because they're not selling" vs. silently not renewing them?

Scott-S6 wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

You get sued and lose. Deservedly. You might reckon you've come up with a solid plan, but I'm afraid every tribunal under the sun will see straight through it.


Like many above, subscription rulesets and army lists would be top of my list.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

You mean like this?

You can't do that sort of thing in real life, not in Europe anyway.

What you could do is hire a new head writer to direct rule development, and expect the other writers to adapt to his directions, after all that's what you're paying them for.

A problem with trying to poach talent from other studios is the gamble. These new people might not integrate well with your current company structure and culture, they are aware of the risk they are taking and bargain accordingly for better protection in case they get fired quickly.

Honestly a lot of the stuf the "new" CEO is already doing.
Improve PR, increase community presence actively work to better the balance ( They may not be succeeding, but they are trying, I'll give them that).

In general tough I'd be carefull about big quality changes, these can backfire spectacularly if you are not carefull. A big part of quality management is mmaking sure that your theoritical improvement is also turns into a practical one.
I read an interview with Laurie golding where he described the mess that happened when black library and the rule studio were rolled into one deprtment. After 2 years of decreased output in every way the thing got rolled back.

One thing i would do is turrets and sponson weapons and weapons for dreadnoughts. The rhino is the base chassis for every SM tank. Its possible to build pretty much every tank variant there is from the rhino. I recently bought a lot of twin assault cannons, twin lascannons, turrets, whirlwind rocket launchers from kromlech because GW doesnt make them.

Probably not much else. They're cashing in HUGE amounts of money and the community at large is happy with what's going on.

Zingraff wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

You mean like this?

You can't do that sort of thing in real life, not in Europe anyway.

What you could do is hire a new head writer to direct rule development, and expect the other writers to adapt to his directions, after all that's what you're paying them for.

Move the company to Maryland, where you don't need a reason to fire someone.

M.

Really, in the UK you can't fire someone for not performing adequately to the role hired for? I guess that's veering off topic but as an American, I find it weird since, while our laws are basically "fire anyone for any reason" you would think "Not good enough at their job" would be a valid reason to dismiss an employee?

"Adequately" and "Well" are two very different things, unfortunately.

Half of all people perform below average. The unemployment rate for any semi-healthy profession is, necessarily, well above 50%.

Then there's also how do you prove why you fire someone. Not as trivial as it sounds. And, to get hurt for it, you don't need to actually be wrong. You don't even need them to be able to win a court case. They just need to have enough to sound like they might possibly be able to convince some people, some of the time.

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:
This forum itself is a free tool GW could utilize to develop rules for each faction.

That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

Does your country have a law that prevents you from firing people for being terrible at their job?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zingraff wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Even in this hypothetical situation, you wouldn't legally be able to just walk in a fire everyone anyway.

That's not a problem.

Say you've got six writers.

You hire six new, good writers.

You then decide that you only need six and six are getting made redundant. You create criteria to score each of the twelve employees (making sure that the criteria will score the six you want to keep the highest).

You make redundant the six lowest scoring writers which just happens to be the six you wanted to get rid of.

You mean like this?

You can't do that sort of thing in real life, not in Europe anyway.

What you could do is hire a new head writer to direct rule development, and expect the other writers to adapt to his directions, after all that's what you're paying them for.

This is exactly what I was thinking if UK has some sort of law that prevent firing people for sucking at their job. You can always bring in Alec Baldwin and give them the brass balls speech.

Yeesh. This thread.

Trying to take things slightly seriously I wouldn't change much right now, because things are going pretty well, but I'd look into:

1) Tying the videogame IP and miniatures IP more closely together. As much as I love WF, the fact that the Warhammer IP is being used in games and the AoS on the tabletop is a bad idea, business wise. Likewise, key title releases should be tied into miniature support - a DoW release should mean a Blood Raven army book and new support materials. The game box should include a Space Marine sprue and a little booklet. Games are one of your key drivers of bringing people into the IP, but they always feel oddly disconnected from the franchise. Brick and mortar retailers of videogame titles would like it too, it's something to push back against digital sales.

2) I'd put more of the Black Library archive titles on to the Kindle platform. I know GW are petrified of other people's platforms, and to some extent they're correct, but for older content that is past it's best sales wise Amazon is literally too big to ignore at this point.

3) I'd go big on "living" digital rulebooks and live up to it. They're a good anti-piracy tool, but only if they're updated properly and in a timely fashion, which has not really been happening tbh.

4) I'd go even harder on new gamer recruitment. The current uptick is probably focused more on lapsed gamers and that's great, and the easy to start kits are good, but I think there's a lot more that could be done on viral and innovative marketing techniques targeting school aged gamers to bring people into stores and buy that stuff in the first place, and every pound of investment there will pay for itself in the long run. A good period like now is the best time to spend here. Shareholders are generally pretty tolerant of spending to grow the customer base at the cost of short term profits (if it's not a total failure!).

5) I'd have a bit more of an archive strategy. MTO is a step in the right direction, but what are the big sellers? Why? Why not do more of that? It's useful business data.

6) I'd move my ass a bit more on the apps. What they've done so far has been good, but they really dropped the ball on that supposed 40K app that was coming.

7) I'd crowdsource translation more to reduce costs and grow the international audience.

^ Good post. Especially number 6!

TV: I'd ignore TV completely. Gun violence/antigun sentiment is at an all time high. Probably not the best time.

Movies: I'd ignore Movies completely. It's a huge risk and investment of time and money for a product that at its core isn't 'wholesome' for general audiences. Unless you're going to get Hugh Jackman as an inquisitor, Ryan Reynolds as an farseer, and The Rock as a space marine the project is DOA.

Video Games: Less DoW3 and more DoW1. The Space Marine video game had a pretty decent narrative.

Gaming Stores: The local GW Store (closet) has 2 tables. 2! Good luck fighting over them. My FLGS has 4 always standing, and room to add 8 more on a whim. They specialize in Comics first, then MTG, then 40k. I don't ever go to the GW store because the prices are the exact same and the store is tiny. If one guy farts, we all die.

Software: Create an army builder that is easy to use and is updated at the same time as every publication. It needs to work on IOS, Android, and Windows and exports to a PDF. It needs to have a tournament function just like Best Coast Pairings, except one that doesn't break on round 2 of every tournament. Dispense a tablet/chromebook and a printer to retailers. This will be automatically in every GW shop, and then they can hand them out to the bigger FLGS as they see fit. People can come in and use the tablet/printer for free (under supervision) and print out army lists. They could do it as a promotional Kiosk type deal. Forgot a list? No problem! Just use the GW Kioskiusomanicum.

Support Tournaments: Casual golfers still watch, read and follow professional golf. I like to compare 40k to golf. Since both are expensive and time consuming, they share a good intersection. Beer and pretzel gamers still read about Adepticon, NOVA, and LVO. I think GW is starting to work with TOs more. Keep it up.

Merchandise!: Why must it be so hard to find quality 40k t shirts? I would buy an overpriced inquisitor jacket in a heartbeat. I would love to have a Sisters of Battle lunch box.

Involve Fans: The community site is great. Run some contests so fans can win merch, models, books, etc. I would run contests to include fans into the fluff. Spend $100 at GW this month and get entered for the chance to have an SM hero named after you. I'd probably move up my next purchase for a shot to have Sgt Duck in the fluff. I've already entered people in the 40k nominate a hero contest. More things of this nature.

I am not commenting on Rules/Models because that's all very subjective.

My $.02

 Infantryman wrote:

Move the company to Maryland, where you don't need a reason to fire someone.

So you'd get rid of all the existing Europe based staff and property, plant, and equipment and start from scratch in Maryland, just so you'd be able to fire people at will? Do you really expect a performance gain (and attendant profit) from at-will employment to outweigh getting rid of most if not all of the institutional knowledge and cutting off access to the large and healthy UK talent pipeline in the miniatures field?

Personally I'm skeptical that's a productive move.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
This is exactly what I was thinking if UK has some sort of law that prevent firing people for sucking at their job. You can always bring in Alec Baldwin and give them the brass balls speech.

Yes, yes it does though it isn't framed quite like that. You at least need some metrics and documentation that someone "sucks at their job" rather than relying on some managers say-so.

The whole at-will employment, "I can fire you for whatever reason or no reason at all" seems to be a mostly an American thing.

I'm fairly certain he was having a laugh, Aesthete.

 Aesthete wrote:


So you'd get rid of all the existing Europe based staff and property, plant, and equipment and start from scratch in Maryland, just so you'd be able to fire people at will?

Not personally, no.

I do wish their US HQ was still in Maryland, though.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm fairly certain he was having a laugh, Aesthete.

Indeed; my wit tends to be pretty dry, and is taken too seriously in person let alone over the tubes.

M.

Wait wait,
I wanted to yell "Make plastic Sisters" but now I see this is about books and devs?

Yeah alright. Fire all the devs. Then make plastic sisters!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm fairly certain he was having a laugh, Aesthete.

An infrantryman after my own heart then. Expectations adjusted accordingly :cheers:

few things
1. Lower the cost of models especially for core troops (generic marines, guardsman, ect.) I got to take a tour of a GW manufacturing facility and the cost of actually producing a model has to be next to nothing once you have recouped the sunk cost of the original sculpt. I really do think this would increase their overall profit by pushing out knock-off companies and allowing a lower barrier to entry that brings people in to eventually buy your higher ticket items as well as selling a much higher volume.
2. Double the funding and size of the department that makes the rules. While i think they have been doing a good job in 8th there is still lots of room for improvement. Some of the rules clearly get rushed to work on more popular codexes. I think they are on the right track with 8th but they clearly need some help.
3. Create a large GW official worldwide tournament similar to ITC. Have GW crown 3 winners each year Best record at GW official tournaments, Best army painted that year and some sort of award for most invested into the hobby (maybe a fan hit by hard times but still a great member of the community, could be nominated by the community). Engaging with the community on a large level like this would get people even further invested in your game.
4. Hire the guy that makes the Hellsreach videos on youtube and produce a full-length movie each year

 Aesthete wrote:

~More diversity in 40k

I don't see a lot of reason to go through with this. D&D, capeshit, and other 'nerd' hobbies have become more popular with women simply because these hobbies have become more popular and more socially acceptable in general. Such an initiative stands to cause more harm than good, for two reasons.

The third parties GW would bring in to 'fix' the problem (whether there truly is a problem is highly debatable, but that's neither here nor there.) will be more invested in their own agenda than staying true to the lore. Work done by this group would prioritize over keeping the game fun. By doing this, you would alienate your core audience, the demographic driving model sales, by prioritizing eliminating everything "problematic" than keeping the game and universe they love enjoyable.

The target audience is miniscule. There are very, very few people that are saying, "Hmm, I would play this game, but the ratio of plastic women is only 43.561%, and I refuse to play any game where the ratio isn't at least 60.8%." People who play the game do so because they like the game, not because the models tick enough boxes on their list of averages. The latter makes up a small (albeit vocal) minority. Even then, this group has signaled that they're more interested in tut-tutting than enjoying themselves. Past experience with other hobbies shows that, even if this group's demands were appeased, they are extremely unlikely to start playing, and will just move on to complaining about something else, and the cycle repeats.

In my opinion, the risk-reward analysis makes this an unsound decision: risking most of your core fanbase for a small group unlikely to patronize your business anyways isn't the best of deals.

You know, you've made me realize I'd like to see more female options in my Guard kits. Some Commisar heads, sergeants, officers, etc.

M.

I'll love some more female commisars. Theres something... exotic and captivating behind the imaginery of the female fascist officer with an iron fist.

And the commisar clothes fit beautifully well on a female.

I would hire a couple of playtesters and force the codex designers to beat every faction at least once with their new codex...then force them to beat their own book with every faction, at least once. If they can't do that, i would throw out the book, stop their pay, then make them work for free until it was fixed.

I really like the blizzard-run forums, it's a nice way to get some easy developer feedback. If I were at GW, I'd try to emulate them as much as possible.

I mean, they won't answer every question every person has, but it's a way to more directly interact with the devs.

I mean, I get it's difficult managing a forum full of nerds who all have things to complain about (myself included), but in might be nice to have a place to discuss stuff and maybe have someone respond to why they do/have done things they way they have.

My five year old son plays 8th edition. I'm not sure what some of you are on about with rules being unclear/poor.

I mean I love dropfleet for example, rule book is awful.
I put up with x-wing, my son likes it too, but it's a boring game with a billion tokens.
I LOVE alphastrike, but it's a nightmare figuring out rules interactions and reading the rulebook. (And it's the EASIER battletech lol.)

The easiest/fun game I've ever owned/played is Ticket to Ride, it's pretty much the perfect game. AoS and 8th ed 40k are right up there with it imo.

As for the ops question:
Make more troops beginner kits other than orks and marines. Use the old casts to make these options available on the cheap for new players.

 sfshilo wrote:
My five year old son plays 8th edition. I'm not sure what some of you are on about with rules being unclear/poor.

Are you kidding ?? The rules are horrible, unclear, vague, incomplete, illogical.

p5freak wrote:

 sfshilo wrote:
My five year old son plays 8th edition. I'm not sure what some of you are on about with rules being unclear/poor.

Are you kidding ?? The rules are horrible, unclear, vague, incomplete, illogical.

In keeping with the thread’s topic: P5freak, what would you change about the process that creates rules to make them less horrible/vague and make them more clear, complete, and logical?

 JimOnMars wrote:
I would hire a couple of playtesters and force the codex designers to beat every faction at least once with their new codex...then force them to beat their own book with every faction, at least once. If they can't do that, i would throw out the book, stop their pay, then make them work for free until it was fixed.

That went from good idea to possible lawsuit way too fast.

 kastelen wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:
I would hire a couple of playtesters and force the codex designers to beat every faction at least once with their new codex...then force them to beat their own book with every faction, at least once. If they can't do that, i would throw out the book, stop their pay, then make them work for free until it was fixed.

That went from good idea to possible lawsuit way too fast.

Glad I'm not the only one who got whiplash from that. It's clear who on this forum has never actually had to lead a team of any kind, yeesh.

I would insist that Rulebooks were done at an equal or better level than Warlord Games. The rulebook would have fluff reduced by 300% and charts and indexes would be included to run basic armies for all races. It would not be a massive tome because of the de-fluffing. Then I would start talking about international tournament support.

I would have GW main take over rules writing for FW. FW team makes the models and passes on their intended role/function but the GW rules writers actually put down the stats/special rules/points. No more of this left hand having no idea what the right is doing nonsense.

This will also stop the asinine "we can't errata/FAQ this clearly broken thing because that's from the FW team (except when we do it anyway in Chapter Approved and nuke it all from orbit)."

Sorcererbob wrote:
In keeping with the thread’s topic: P5freak, what would you change about the process that creates rules to make them less horrible/vague and make them more clear, complete, and logical?

Hire some guys who do that for profession rather than for hobby like GW does. Ultimately GW rules writers are bunch of hobbyists thinking how to get cool rules. How to make balanced and well written rules is not their area of expertise. Fine if some are like that(it IS good to have somebody who can create cool rules least game becomes too dry) but they really, really, REALLY need somebody to work out from cool concept into balanced rule that's properly spelled out so there's no more these silly things like assault weapons that technically still do NOTHING.

GW designers are more like bunch of guys looking for interesting games rather than professional game developers. It shows in both good and bad.


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RogueApiary wrote:
I would have GW main take over rules writing for FW. FW team makes the models and passes on their intended role/function but the GW rules writers actually put down the stats/special rules/points. No more of this left hand having no idea what the right is doing nonsense.

This will also stop the asinine "we can't errata/FAQ this clearly broken thing because that's from the FW team (except when we do it anyway in Chapter Approved and nuke it all from orbit)."

Christ no. FW has shown in history it can make actually good logical balanced rules once in a while. GW has shown it's incapable of that.

I, personally, would do things to counter the amount of lost revenue as a result of things like 3rd party sites and codex downloads.

This would essentially be all about “availability”. In terms of rules and Codices, I would make a push towards more digital options. Currently there are only big epub3 options that only work on certain devices. I would expand this to different formats to reach out to the wider player base, and also re-design some of the options into “index style” downloads – so no fluff and showcases etc, just rules, points and datasheets. This would then be a cheap, non-spectacular, option for download compared to everything else. I would also personally expect book codex sales not to suffer massively from this either, due to large aspect of “collection” within the hobby. If anything, it would push the sale of new armies to existing players as they could then get easier access to rules, without needing to downloading them off some dodgy site, who in turn would then likely buy the physical codex and models.

In terms of 3rd party sites, I’d push towards more “upgrade” kits across most factions and “sub-factions”. Torso, heads and transfers would be initial step for a lot of the armies (especially Imperium ones), as there is a massive amount of chapters/regiments etc to choose from, but nothing to help distinguish them on the table. Alongside this, I would also introduce a “bitz” section on the website. This -could- have an impact on profits though, as rather than buy a 2nd box for that 1 extra weapon, people could instead just buy the bit. Generally, in this instance, many of us just go to a 3rd party bitz store and buy the item there. But, by bringing together these 2 options, you would be offering a very strong challenge to all the 3rd party sites and bitz sellers, thus bringing lost revenue back into company.

Thirdly, I would high an audit team with the sole purpose of re-checking all publications (especially rules and codices) and give them complete license put every single question and issue they find, to the design team. These would-be people able to look at game from a “detached/outside” perspective, allowing them to question everything from a “new player” point of view. As such, it would reduce the amount of rule contractions and issues requiring FAQ each time a new book is release. As such, the quality of the game and publications would improve, reducing the impact and frustrations of existing players and in turn, making each new publication more appealing to the new players.

Forth, I’d re-look at the Horus Heresy game. It has completely stalled in my opinion. I would task them with getting rules out for all of the legions at an vastly increased speed, along with taking the same approach as they have with 8th edition 40k. If there is no model built, do not make initial rules. The only exception would be the Primarchs, but, I would also set a hard deadline to ensure all of the remaining Primarchs are released within the next 6-12 months (There are only 6 left to do). I would also take note of where to community is at, rules wise with HH since 8th’s release. If the community feeling and movement continues to push more towards an 8th style ruleset, i’d set the target of re-design to 8th style once the full release of Primarchs and Legion rules is complete (again 12 months max).

Finally, I would bring all rules design together under 1 team and roof for each of the systems. 40k GW and FW would be 1 team, AoS GW and FW would be a 2nd team etc etc. FW would retain their artistic licence to continue to design and create the pieces they currently do (i.e experimental stuff, large scale models, their own sub factions (e.g Red Scorpions, Elysians etc), but the rules would then be created based on the overall game separately.

A lot of options here, but I think, having these as a frame work would greatly move the company and hobby forward.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Extra points to add after reading more comments -

In terms of brick and mortar stores, I would make ordering FW and Black Library products possible from store, with the option of having them shipped to the store at zero cost to the customer. While the stores won’t have the space to stock everything, I’d add in the tech and advertising to make it more visible and possible.

As for the comments about getting a new design team, I don’t think this is completely required. I would instead, simply hire a couple of new people with the sole purpose of injecting some common sense into the way things are done. This, paired with the audit team should generally make things a lot smoother for everything involved.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hollow wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Finally, I would hire a game designer for each faction that plays that faction and LOVES that faction and use them as the stick to measure new rules on. No army should have to spend an entire edition (in orkz case 3-4) on the shelf because the design team either doesn't understand the army or just doesn't care.

Good ideas, this one in particular has always made me wonder. I'm hoping the recent cups, badges and journal books are a step in this direction.

I would NEVER do this. Ever. In my opinion it will lead to nothing but codex creep, as most of the players would simply want to keep doing everything possible to make their faction the best. Some would take a balanced approach, but then that would massively increase the overall imbalance.

Personally, I think the best option would be to take the opposite approach. Sit down a rules designer with the Black Library writers responsible for that faction. This would then lead to a discussion of who the army is from a fluff point of view – how they operate, how they fight, what weapons and units are favoured etc etc. Once that information is gathered, it would then be used as a base for all further rules, stratagems and styles etc.

Once a draft is complete, independent of the current ruleset, this would then be reviewed and adapted to fit into the overall balance of the game. But, as the basic framework of the army would be based around the fluff etc, the army will still play as seen in the fluff and can then be adjusted via points costs and so on.

 Galas wrote:
I'll love some more female commisars. Theres something... exotic and captivating behind the imaginery of the female fascist officer with an iron fist.

And the commisar clothes fit beautifully well on a female.

*Thoughts about "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" immediately pop up*

Sorcererbob wrote:
I was applying real-world, adult, and practical analysis to the proposal of plastic sisters.

What's the use for that? Even if I could demonstrate brilliantly the "real-world, adult, and practical" feasibility of plastic Sisters of Battle, noone from GW is reading this thread, and definitely not the one who could make the final decision. I'd rather keep my role-play (because role-play is what you asked for) fun rather than "real-world-like", "adult" and "practical".

Well, it's a question that kind of came up in their current customer survey.

So here's my suggestion - Print On Demand Legacy Rules.

Start off with Rogue Trader era stuff. They've already done the core rulebook as part of the 30th Anniversary (very nice it is too!). But what about the Orky stuff and Realms of Chaos?

Now I don't know if there's a copyright issue there (I'd imagine not, but let's not take as gospel), but PoD for those surely can't take a great deal of effort?

It's a low risk venture the way I see it, albeit utterly devoid of any actual knowledge in the area!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Start off with Rogue Trader era stuff. They've already done the core rulebook as part of the 30th Anniversary (very nice it is too!). But what about the Orky stuff and Realms of Chaos?!

And there was a scream of agony from multiple ebay sellers

(that or GW prices them up enough for ebay prices to look reasonable!)

Stuff eBay sellers

I reckon there's a definite market for it. And, a source of interesting and unusual Christmas presents etc.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, it's a question that kind of came up in their current customer survey.

So here's my suggestion - Print On Demand Legacy Rules.

Start off with Rogue Trader era stuff. They've already done the core rulebook as part of the 30th Anniversary (very nice it is too!). But what about the Orky stuff and Realms of Chaos?

Now I don't know if there's a copyright issue there (I'd imagine not, but let's not take as gospel), but PoD for those surely can't take a great deal of effort?

It's a low risk venture the way I see it, albeit utterly devoid of any actual knowledge in the area!

I’d avoid going back and re-printing old rulesets for people to use. The game, as a whole, needs to continue to move forward rather than constantly looking back. Each game has to have a united front and single set of rules if it is to work and be accessible to all.

The only thing I can see it being used as, is a sell as “collector items” and not to be used for actual game play. Personally, I’d rather not have to turn up to a store, argue about what sets of rules we want to use, then remember said rules, dig out the models that are legal to use in said game, and then attempt to play.

If you want to play an old edition at home with a friend, then, I believe most of the rules are probably available online somewhere.


As for the whole Sisters of Battle thing… Personally, if I was GW, I wouldn’t be rushing to do this. It has become a massive internet circle jerk and joke, so drawing any kind of possible revenue value from the idea of doing it, would be practically impossible. Probably 80% of the people that complain about it have no intention of buying said army if it was available, they are only shouting for it due to the online community horde mentality and, often, a large portion of immaturity.

If I was too seriously look at making SoB in plastic, I’d have to have solid expected figures way in advance.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Stuff eBay sellers

I reckon there's a definite market for it. And, a source of interesting and unusual Christmas presents etc.

Don't get counter argument from me! I would love that kind of service myself. Too bad GW probably sees it as competing with itself again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kdash wrote:
If I was too seriously look at making SoB in plastic, I’d have to have solid expected figures way in advance.

Like the moment they released anything for SoB sales blew them by surprise?

tneva82 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Stuff eBay sellers

I reckon there's a definite market for it. And, a source of interesting and unusual Christmas presents etc.

Don't get counter argument from me! I would love that kind of service myself. Too bad GW probably sees it as competing with itself again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kdash wrote:
If I was too seriously look at making SoB in plastic, I’d have to have solid expected figures way in advance.

Like the moment they released anything for SoB sales blew them by surprise?

Genuine question, as I don’t have any references, and don’t follow the whole argument –

But, what model release blew them away in terms of sales?

Canoness Viridya or Celestine would be my guess?

As for the PoD thing. If you likes it, tells them you likes it. If my idea becomes a popular idea, there's more chance of us getting it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Canoness Viridya or Celestine would be my guess?

As for the PoD thing. If you likes it, tells them you likes it. If my idea becomes a popular idea, there's more chance of us getting it.

The only option i guess is the Canoness, but, i've never seen the model actually used and i thought most saw it was a "collectors" item.

Celestine can't be used as a reference, due to her only being sold as part of the Imperium Tri box set. And even then, it could be argued, brought by a lot of people because of how strong her rules are with all Imperium armies, rather than her being a SoB model.

Sorcererbob wrote:

And why do you think that sisters will be more popular than the lowest-tier? They haven't had a release for years, surely there is no one actually collecting them now.
(/director)

Do you know who was the bottom tier (or damn close to it) and hadn't had a release for years? Tau, prior to their 6th edition codex.

The thing is when armies go without updates to rules for ages; without new models and without company attention people drift away from supporting them. Because of the time invested in building and painting and the cost of models and building an army, many gamers are reluctant to throw good money continually at an army if its simply not performing well in-game and if the company making it are showing signs of not supporting it.

This is not unique to GW - Spartan Games had multiple examples of this taken to the extreme where it wasn't just armies but whole ignored games.


However when the company then shows interest; releases new rules and even a few new models, the interest can rise fast. You bring out of the woodwork many of the former fan-base plus you often gain new fans.


This has happened many times before - Dark Eldar went AGES without a codex and almost vanished. Sisters are likely to be the very same in that all they need is a few new models and updated rules (I would say Sisters does need some plastic if just to help lower their price of entry).



I think GW is trying to move away from this former release pattern because it would leave armies like Sisters, Necrons, Dark Eldar with fewer models, reducing competitive/viable rules and a dwindling sales rate; which then required big investment in marketing, rules and new sculpts/moulds in order to basically restart the release of the faction. Hopefully 8th edition is the real powerful beginning where GW tries to keep most armies on even footing support wise from them - already rules and codex releases have chagned in a big way

 deviantduck wrote:
TV: I'd ignore TV completely. Gun violence/antigun sentiment is at an all time high. Probably not the best time.

Only in the US. In the rest of the developed word we don't have a strong anti-gun sentiment because we don't have a gun violence problem .

 Galas wrote:
I'll love some more female commisars. Theres something... exotic and captivating behind the imaginery of the female fascist officer with an iron fist.

And the commisar clothes fit beautifully well on a female.

Something like this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VakUHHUSdf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgyH5_JMBts


Can't wait for dem female primaris marine though!

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

And why do you think that sisters will be more popular than the lowest-tier? They haven't had a release for years, surely there is no one actually collecting them now.
(/director)

Do you know who was the bottom tier (or damn close to it) and hadn't had a release for years? Tau, prior to their 6th edition codex.

To be honest, I’m not against the idea. And if there is a history of faction recovery generating sales, then all the better. I can’t see why a basic battle sister squad in plastic couldn’t be part of a larger inquisition / custodes / imperium release, and then sales of that kit used to determine if the line should be continued. It seems like a reasonably small risk to approach it like that.

 The Phazer wrote:
Yeesh. This thread.

Trying to take things slightly seriously I wouldn't change much right now, because things are going pretty well, but I'd look into:

1) Tying the videogame IP and miniatures IP more closely together. As much as I love WF, the fact that the Warhammer IP is being used in games and the AoS on the tabletop is a bad idea, business wise. Likewise, key title releases should be tied into miniature support - a DoW release should mean a Blood Raven army book and new support materials. The game box should include a Space Marine sprue and a little booklet. Games are one of your key drivers of bringing people into the IP, but they always feel oddly disconnected from the franchise. Brick and mortar retailers of videogame titles would like it too, it's something to push back against digital sales.

That's a horrible idea. You're tying your sales at the mercy of another entity and pray it doesn't screw up (like, you know, DoW III). Furthermore, an entity that will have a release cycle which you just don't know and whose contents don't match yours! (Because they will work with pre-existing material, and you want to push the new stuff, not pre-existing, already paid for, kits)

2) I'd put more of the Black Library archive titles on to the Kindle platform. I know GW are petrified of other people's platforms, and to some extent they're correct, but for older content that is past it's best sales wise Amazon is literally too big to ignore at this point.

This is sensible and reasonable. Make the older books more accessible.

 Hollow wrote:
That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

Back when I played EVE Online, I remember a developer mentioning that if they left development to the players, every ship would powercreep up to a million hit points and 99% resistance to everything.

Letting the public playtest isn't as easy as it might seem. Community feedback on model development was one of the thing Privateer Press changed with Warmachine Mk3. Even though they seem to focus on "give us playtests" and just use the untested feedback forum as a lightning rod for silly suggestions, there's still a lot of people lobbying for their faction and unable to accept when something is too good, heckling battle reports where something is reported as overpowered ("you just lacked skill!"), etc.

And the WM faction communities tend to be much less partisan than 40K ones, if Dakka is any indication.

Sorcererbob wrote:

- Offer a monthly $4 subscription to the core rules in lieu of buying the main book, +$3 for each current codex you subscribe to, plus additional costs that may be associated with legacy/specialty rules. Allow the player to subscribe to the rules that they use.
- Provide a monthly release of rules and points updates (quarterly releases for rules changes, and monthly for errata / points-adjustments). This keeps them subscribing.
- Within that same cost, provide a Battlescribe-like functionality. Put in some additional value-add functionality, like being able to print out unit cards that includes all of the relevant rules, export army lists in PDF, view it on your phone etc.
- Offer a functionality for tournament organisers where players can register their lists. Have the site automatically confirm legality of the list and provide a mechanism for the TO to track success of different players. The goal is to use information gathered through this to drive your rules/points updates.
?

I've been an advocate for a subscription rules service for a long time, $3/codex/month starts to hit very hard for folks with multiple different forces - remember there are 20+ factions out there right now. Given a typical codex last 3-4 years $1/faction/month seems a little more palatable and still earns GW $35-50 for that edition - if not luring to people who don't even play that faction to just grab the dataslates on the app to have them.

A good subscription service typically has tiers, rules and a book or two for $5/mo and then premium for $20/mo with rules and all dataslates. The battlescribe functionality is key, especially if it can remember your units so you can build your dataslates as you build your models and drag and drop them into force org charts. Also key is updating these digital offerings with the FAQ/errata enteries... I hate having a sheet of paper with my digital codex for the errata.

Now, this is player dreaming... if you buy the hard copy book you gain access to the app for free through an access code - similar to buying games on Steam. I like the books, the art, the fluff but don't want it in my gaming app... in the app all i want is rules and dataslates. But I don't want to pay for the same thing twice.

 Elemental wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

Back when I played EVE Online, I remember a developer mentioning that if they left development to the players, every ship would powercreep up to a million hit points and 99% resistance to everything.

Very true. Second Life had a "height" characteristic for avatars, and very quickly 90 percent of avatars wound up being 9 or 10 feet tall, (whatever the limit was). Players are generally pretty awful at governing themselves.