https://jobs.games-workshop.com/search-and-apply/games-developer-matched-play

Key Responsibilities:

Develop and refine rules and mechanics for Warhammer 40,000’s matched play format, ensuring a balanced and competitive experience.

Conduct extensive playtesting and analysis to evaluate the impact of rules changes and gather feedback from the competitive player community.

Collaborate with other designers to create new matched play, mission packs that challenge and inspire players.

Stay informed about the current metagame and competitive trends within the Warhammer 40,000 community, incorporating valuable insights into your design work.

Work closely with other departments, including the Miniatures team and wider Warhammer 40,000 Studio teams, to ensure rules integration and consistency across all aspects of the game.

Engage with the Warhammer 40,000 player community, attending tournaments and events to gather feedback and represent Games Workshop as a knowledgeable and approachable ambassador

Requirements:

Extensive experience playing Warhammer 40,000 in a competitive tournament environment, with a demonstrated winning track record.

In-depth knowledge of the Warhammer 40,000 rules and a passion for the game’s lore and universe.

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify game balance issues and propose effective solutions.

Excellent communication and collaboration abilities, as you will be working closely with a diverse team of designers and interacting with players from various backgrounds.

Flexibility and adaptability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.

A creative mindset and a desire to push the boundaries of Matched Play gaming through innovative design choices.

All i can say to this is that old Shackleton piece:



Especially the 'small wages' part

Oof, talk about applying for a job where a vast majority of your customers hate you

Not my idea of a sane job tbh

 tauist wrote:
Oof, talk about applying for a job where a vast majority of your customers hate you

Not my idea of a sane job tbh

On one hand, you'd get paid to read Dakka.

On the other, you'd have to read Dakka to get paid

"Conduct extensive playtesting..."

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
"Conduct extensive playtesting..."

In German 'extensiv' has a secondary meaning of "conducted with a vast breadth, but with very little effort" The opposite of 'intensive'.

Someone on Reddit posted that when the last time this job was posted they only offered 25K salary and required re-locating to Nottingham.

So, don't expect this position to be the solution to very many problems.

 CaulynDarr wrote:
Someone on Reddit posted that when the last time this job was posted they only offered 25K salary and required re-locating to Nottingham.

So, don't expect this position to be the solution to very many problems.

If true, the salary alone is the answer to every forum post asking why GW can't every get their gak together when it comes to rules.

 CaulynDarr wrote:
Someone on Reddit posted that when the last time this job was posted they only offered 25K salary and required re-locating to Nottingham.

So, don't expect this position to be the solution to very many problems.

GW is notorious for paying laughably low sums for what amounts to serious design work, they operate on some sort of BS logic that is sadly rather common in artistic and adjacent circles: you do this job to build a resume, because it's your passion, and because you love the worlds they're building. Apparently sometimes they even suggest taking on other jobs (at lower priority, of course) to allow you your 'dream' of working at GW... As the saying in artist circles goes, exposure is something you die of

I assume that it's not a remote work position and that you have to live near/work in Nottingham. I have no idea if that is a good or bad thing.

 warboss wrote:
I assume that it's not a remote work position and that you have to live near/work in Nottingham. I have no idea if that is a good or bad thing.

Let me put it this way - estimated cost of living in Nottingham, including rent, ranges around 1500 pounds a month, for a single living alone.

Contrast that with GW's princely offer of 25.000 pounds annually (a figure that turned up more than once in several videos of ex-GW people), and keep in mind that you'd be expected to buy hobby stuff and such on your own money, and draw your own conclusions.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 warboss wrote:
I assume that it's not a remote work position and that you have to live near/work in Nottingham. I have no idea if that is a good or bad thing.

Let me put it this way - estimated cost of living in Nottingham, including rent, ranges around 1500 pounds a month, for a single living alone.

Contrast that with GW's princely offer of 25.000 pounds annually (a figure that turned up more than once in several videos of ex-GW people), and keep in mind that you'd be expected to buy hobby stuff and such on your own money, and draw your own conclusions.

£25k for Nottingham is still poor money in reality, I live in an area of the country where the cost of living is lower and 25k is still just "ok" at best.

some thoughts:

that GW is searching for a professional playtester after the game is released and most of it printed tells me to not expect a lot in the next 6-12 months and that even with this new position the game gets necessary changes by the time it is halfway thru and work on 11th already ongoing

that they want them to settle in Nottingham while this position is for someone heavily invested into the game, so a person that would have everything necessary to do it at home means it likely someone already in that area or a person that wants to get into the game design community and "game designer at GW" makes a good entry


but at least GW acknowledge the state of the game and that it needs to do something about it

Dudeface wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 warboss wrote:
I assume that it's not a remote work position and that you have to live near/work in Nottingham. I have no idea if that is a good or bad thing.

Let me put it this way - estimated cost of living in Nottingham, including rent, ranges around 1500 pounds a month, for a single living alone.

Contrast that with GW's princely offer of 25.000 pounds annually (a figure that turned up more than once in several videos of ex-GW people), and keep in mind that you'd be expected to buy hobby stuff and such on your own money, and draw your own conclusions.

£25k for Nottingham is still poor money in reality, I live in an area of the country where the cost of living is lower and 25k is still just "ok" at best.

Yeah, that's what i'm saying, sarcastically After taxes these 25k become more like 21k for a single, which rounds out to 1750 a month, just 250 pounds above the absolute bare necessities, and that does not figure stuff like the cost of actually moving there etc. - you'd have trouble even putting down a deposit or whatever at these wages, and that's all considering you can even get the stated rent etc.; you're one broken down car or whatever away from desitution with that job. It's barely tolerable for a recent graduate or someone on his first job, and outright insulting for anyone experienced or professional.

member when GW hired an editor somewhere in 8th to 9th edition era.

member that when HH dropped the english rules had multiple differing iterations of certain things to this day.

 kodos wrote:
some thoughts:

that GW is searching for a professional playtester after the game is released and most of it printed tells me to not expect a lot in the next 6-12 months and that even with this new position the game gets necessary changes by the time it is halfway thru and work on 11th already ongoing

that they want them to settle in Nottingham while this position is for someone heavily invested into the game, so a person that would have everything necessary to do it at home means it likely someone already in that area or a person that wants to get into the game design community and "game designer at GW" makes a good entry


but at least GW acknowledge the state of the game and that it needs to do something about it

Honestly the recruitment criteria if the supposed salary is true is utterly mental. To relocate to a new city for a low paid job for someone with a proven track record of 40k competitive event wins is like a goldilocks situation.

The other big question I had is whether this is expansion or backfill.

Dudeface wrote:

 kodos wrote:
some thoughts:

that GW is searching for a professional playtester after the game is released and most of it printed tells me to not expect a lot in the next 6-12 months and that even with this new position the game gets necessary changes by the time it is halfway thru and work on 11th already ongoing

that they want them to settle in Nottingham while this position is for someone heavily invested into the game, so a person that would have everything necessary to do it at home means it likely someone already in that area or a person that wants to get into the game design community and "game designer at GW" makes a good entry


but at least GW acknowledge the state of the game and that it needs to do something about it

Honestly the recruitment criteria if the supposed salary is true is utterly mental. To relocate to a new city for a low paid job for someone with a proven track record of 40k competitive event wins is like a goldilocks situation.

The other big question I had is whether this is expansion or backfill.

We have at least one data point from James Hewitt:

My salary as a part time retail store worker in 2002 was just over £2.50 an hour (£4.16 in 2021 money, adjusted for inflation — this was when there was a different minimum wage for under 21s), and when I left in 2008 I was on a salary of £14,000pa (£19,100afi). As a store manager in Windsor I was on £17,000pa (£23,300afi), and this increased to £20,000pa (£24,900afi) when I went to Kensington. As a Rules Writer I was paid £19,000pa (£21,700afi), increasing to £20,000pa (£22,300afi) in Specialist Brands.

via: https://lagoon83.medium.com/working-at-games-workshop-the-nuanced-version-edda9ffb1237

Now mind, that was half a dozen years ago, but it seems to fit at least the ballpark.

He goes on:

Also, the figures above shouldn’t be taken as indicative of what anyone else in the same role was being paid at the same time. For example, I know that one of the more senior members of the Rules Writing team was on at least £30,000, because that was one of the things I pointed out in my many attempts to ask for a pay rise. I also know that the person who replaced me on the team was on £26,000, because they matched his previous salary. The point is, the rule seemed to be that they would pay as little as possible, and that generally meant matching what you were on in your previous job if you really put your foot down and said you weren’t taking a pay cut. That said, there were definitely people who were told “sorry, we can’t pay that much”, so presumably there are some (hidden) salary bands for the various positions. That, or the managers have a set budget for their team, and it’s down to them to make a call on whether someone’s too expensive.

So even if they pay more like 30k-35k today (which is a big 'if') that's still extremely low in general, and especially with the very specific demands they're making.

 warboss wrote:
I assume that it's not a remote work position and that you have to live near/work in Nottingham. I have no idea if that is a good or bad thing.

They ought to allow remote work so us crazy Americans that break codex within half an hour of leaked rules can attempt to stop that from happening.

I bet there's already someone they have in mind. A job posting that won't last long and has garbage pay implies it.

Dudeface wrote:
The other big question I had is whether this is expansion or backfill.

going from the responsibilities I would read it that this is a new position in addition to the other game designer whom are you working with but that job has the main focus on balance for matched play

 kodos wrote:
https://jobs.games-workshop.com/search-and-apply/games-developer-matched-play

Key Responsibilities:

Develop and refine rules and mechanics for Warhammer 40,000’s matched play format, ensuring a balanced and competitive experience.

Conduct extensive playtesting and analysis to evaluate the impact of rules changes and gather feedback from the competitive player community.

Collaborate with other designers to create new matched play, mission packs that challenge and inspire players.

Stay informed about the current metagame and competitive trends within the Warhammer 40,000 community, incorporating valuable insights into your design work.

Work closely with other departments, including the Miniatures team and wider Warhammer 40,000 Studio teams, to ensure rules integration and consistency across all aspects of the game.

Engage with the Warhammer 40,000 player community, attending tournaments and events to gather feedback and represent Games Workshop as a knowledgeable and approachable ambassador

Requirements:

Extensive experience playing Warhammer 40,000 in a competitive tournament environment, with a demonstrated winning track record.

In-depth knowledge of the Warhammer 40,000 rules and a passion for the game’s lore and universe.

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify game balance issues and propose effective solutions.

Excellent communication and collaboration abilities, as you will be working closely with a diverse team of designers and interacting with players from various backgrounds.

Flexibility and adaptability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.

A creative mindset and a desire to push the boundaries of Matched Play gaming through innovative design choices.

for the likely salary they have no chance of getting anyone capable of doing the job, the analytical requirements alone will pay, considerably, better elsewhere

leopard wrote:


for the likely salary they have no chance of getting anyone capable of doing the job, the analytical requirements alone will pay, considerably, better elsewhere

That's not just a GW problem. I heard Fantasy Flight offered similar low salaries for design positions. It came up from a player who was doing some real intricate mathematical analysis on X-Wing. He offered his services officially, but they were no where in the ballpark of what creating his mathematical model would cost on the market.

Designers for games like this should be making comparable salaries to software engineers of similar experience. But given the quality of the Warhammer 40K app, they are probably underpaying for that too. (Changing the unit size not accordingly changing the number of default war gear in the unit offends me professionally and spiritually)

I'm looking at my job which requires two degrees and paid less than what GW is offering when I moved half way across the country to take it, and thinking that the money seems not terrible for somebody who just needs to have a half decent grasp of 40K and be able to control their drooling when in public...

Ok, so its not the worlds best wage, but i will say, that the average wage in the Uk right now is somewhere in the region of 25k a year. In Wales, where I live, its closer to 22k. In London its a lot higher, but so is the cost of living (hence the old london living allowance).

I would ask the posters here what they would consider a decent lkving wage seeing as nurses in wales get an average of £33,000 -£35,000 per year and that is considered one of the most stressful/labour intensive jobs available.

Please note, I am not disparaging anyone here, I'm honestly interested in peoples opinions.

Neither am I defending GW. if it becomes apparent that this is a low wage then I will fully accept these arguments.

princeyg wrote:
Ok, so its not the worlds best wage, but i will say, that the average wage in the Uk right now is somewhere in the region of 25k a year. In Wales, where I live, its closer to 22k. In London its a lot higher, but so is the cost of living (hence the old london living allowance).

I would ask the posters here what they would consider a decent lkving wage seeing as nurses in wales get an average of £33,000 -£35,000 per year and that is considered one of the most stressful/labour intensive jobs available.

Please note, I am not disparaging anyone here, I'm honestly interested in peoples opinions.

Neither am I defending GW. if it becomes apparent that this is a low wage then I will fully accept these arguments.

Glassdoor puts the average salary for Game Designers (mostly of the digital kind, of course) for the UK at £33,000 with around £2,500 additional cash compensations. That's an average that his already heavily slanted downwards by low-level mobile game companies and such. General 'Analysts' sit at £40,000 and Product Designers at £55,000.

GW, by their own admission, are looking for a full-time position, willingness to relocate, with design responsibilities, for someone to keep track of the whole competitive scene, which might include travel and/or work in different timezones and such, with analytical skills, design skill and a proven track record of tournament wins and experience.

If that rumoured salary is true, it's basically a joke for the package of skills and relevant experiences they want.

princeyg wrote:
Ok, so its not the worlds best wage, but i will say, that the average wage in the Uk right now is somewhere in the region of 25k a year. In Wales, where I live, its closer to 22k. In London its a lot higher, but so is the cost of living (hence the old london living allowance).

I would ask the posters here what they would consider a decent lkving wage seeing as nurses in wales get an average of £33,000 -£35,000 per year and that is considered one of the most stressful/labour intensive jobs available.

Please note, I am not disparaging anyone here, I'm honestly interested in peoples opinions.

Neither am I defending GW. if it becomes apparent that this is a low wage then I will fully accept these arguments.

The £25k average salary figure includes part time workers. The UK average salary for full time employment is £33k according to the ONS.

It’s also worth noting the minimum hourly wage in the UK is now £10.42, so a 40hr work week is £21,673.60pa. £25k for any sort of skilled job is laughable.

Aash wrote:

princeyg wrote:
Ok, so its not the worlds best wage, but i will say, that the average wage in the Uk right now is somewhere in the region of 25k a year. In Wales, where I live, its closer to 22k. In London its a lot higher, but so is the cost of living (hence the old london living allowance).

I would ask the posters here what they would consider a decent lkving wage seeing as nurses in wales get an average of £33,000 -£35,000 per year and that is considered one of the most stressful/labour intensive jobs available.

Please note, I am not disparaging anyone here, I'm honestly interested in peoples opinions.

Neither am I defending GW. if it becomes apparent that this is a low wage then I will fully accept these arguments.

The £25k average salary figure includes part time workers. The UK average salary for full time employment is £33k according to the ONS.

It’s also worth noting the minimum hourly wage in the UK is now £10.42, so a 40hr work week is £21,673.60pa. £25k for any sort of skilled job is laughable.

Especially for that laundry list of things - even setting the Warhammer-specific stuff aside, they want someone with strong analytics, project management skills, experience in agile environments, strong and rapid decisionmaking and design 'hotfixing' skills, with aptitude for leadership and communications in diverse environments as well as effectively customer and key stakeholder communications skills (with the tournament scene/ playtesters/ organizers). That's either a job for a team of several people, or for some sort of experienced project manager or consultant with some successes under their belt.

princeyg wrote:
Ok, so its not the worlds best wage, but i will say, that the average wage in the Uk right now is somewhere in the region of 25k a year. In Wales, where I live, its closer to 22k. In London its a lot higher, but so is the cost of living (hence the old london living allowance).

I would ask the posters here what they would consider a decent lkving wage seeing as nurses in wales get an average of £33,000 -£35,000 per year and that is considered one of the most stressful/labour intensive jobs available.

Please note, I am not disparaging anyone here, I'm honestly interested in peoples opinions.

Neither am I defending GW. if it becomes apparent that this is a low wage then I will fully accept these arguments.

Nurses are a profession who are in short supply, grossly underpaid and under represented as well. They deserve more for the hours and work they do.

A better example maybe is that in Yorkshire where I'm hiding, a first line software support guy can easily make 25k at some firms, some of the ones I've worked alongside however couldn't tell their there from their they're. Never mind come close to managing the world load and expectations of that post for a market leader.

Does this mean someone lost their job over the 10th edition launch datacards? The crowd who went to the first hypercompetitive event this weekend in Salzburg sure thinks that they should

Or that position did not exist until now

Read some reports from Salzburg and it was mostly Eldar, Knights and GSC tabling each other and fighting mirrors with a Marine list slipping thru winning 5 out of 6 games

I've seen some posts indicating that a similar position opened um 2ish years ago, with no indication if it was filled or not.

Also, you need to factor in experience in salary. Anyone that could come in and fix their problems right away is going to have to come with a high level of experience. Someone whose been doing similar analysis for for 10 years at least. So you can't look at comparable average salaries, you need to look at average senior level salaries.

Tsagualsa wrote:

princeyg wrote:
Ok, so its not the worlds best wage, but i will say, that the average wage in the Uk right now is somewhere in the region of 25k a year. In Wales, where I live, its closer to 22k. In London its a lot higher, but so is the cost of living (hence the old london living allowance).

I would ask the posters here what they would consider a decent lkving wage seeing as nurses in wales get an average of £33,000 -£35,000 per year and that is considered one of the most stressful/labour intensive jobs available.

Please note, I am not disparaging anyone here, I'm honestly interested in peoples opinions.

Neither am I defending GW. if it becomes apparent that this is a low wage then I will fully accept these arguments.

Glassdoor puts the average salary for Game Designers (mostly of the digital kind, of course) for the UK at £33,000 with around £2,500 additional cash compensations. That's an average that his already heavily slanted downwards by low-level mobile game companies and such. General 'Analysts' sit at £40,000 and Product Designers at £55,000.

GW, by their own admission, are looking for a full-time position, willingness to relocate, with design responsibilities, for someone to keep track of the whole competitive scene, which might include travel and/or work in different timezones and such, with analytical skills, design skill and a proven track record of tournament wins and experience.

If that rumoured salary is true, it's basically a joke for the package of skills and relevant experiences they want.

fair enough, it is a bad deal then. thanks .

ps, just wanted to thank everyone for answering directly and without sarcasm.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Does this mean someone lost their job over the 10th edition launch datacards? The crowd who went to the first hypercompetitive event this weekend in Salzburg sure thinks that they should

On a scale of Franz josef to austria -hungary collapsing how bad was the feedback torwards gw?

So only now they want to start introducing "consistency across all aspects of the game". Hilarious.

And yeah, for GW you better bring 20 years of industry experience for a position they pay like an entry level intern. GW doing GW thigns, as usual...

Not Online!!! wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Does this mean someone lost their job over the 10th edition launch datacards? The crowd who went to the first hypercompetitive event this weekend in Salzburg sure thinks that they should

On a scale of Franz josef to austria -hungary collapsing how bad was the feedback torwards gw?

Only saw the conclusion of the Eldar player placed 8th: "Still, a good start for the tournament season. Can go on like this"

Not Online!!! wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Does this mean someone lost their job over the 10th edition launch datacards? The crowd who went to the first hypercompetitive event this weekend in Salzburg sure thinks that they should

On a scale of Franz josef to austria -hungary collapsing how bad was the feedback torwards gw?

Bad enough they released a balance patch today specifically addressing issues that were blatant in that event, and of course utterly failing to fix them

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Does this mean someone lost their job over the 10th edition launch datacards? The crowd who went to the first hypercompetitive event this weekend in Salzburg sure thinks that they should

On a scale of Franz josef to austria -hungary collapsing how bad was the feedback torwards gw?

Bad enough they released a balance patch today specifically addressing issues that were blatant in that event, and of course utterly failing to fix them

So not even on the scale anymore.. oof

princeyg wrote:
Ok, so its not the worlds best wage, but i will say, that the average wage in the Uk right now is somewhere in the region of 25k a year. In Wales, where I live, its closer to 22k. In London its a lot higher, but so is the cost of living (hence the old london living allowance).

I would ask the posters here what they would consider a decent lkving wage seeing as nurses in wales get an average of £33,000 -£35,000 per year and that is considered one of the most stressful/labour intensive jobs available.

Please note, I am not disparaging anyone here, I'm honestly interested in peoples opinions.

Neither am I defending GW. if it becomes apparent that this is a low wage then I will fully accept these arguments.

Firstly - the pay for nurses is actually worse than you think. That average figure above includes the senior roles like practitioners and matrons, who can reach relatively high pay. However there isn't lot of them, and a Band 5 NHS nurse - by far the most common postion - will earn around £27.5 - 32k depending on experience and area of the country. Source: my wife was recently on a picket line

But onto my main point. I think with your post you've touched onto a larger problem here in how the hobby community discusses issues like this.

By it's nature this hobby attracts customers from all over the world and tends to favour people with more disposable income, and both of which can heavily distort perceptions. I've noticed a borderline-toxic tendency in these conversations to disparage anything percieved as a low income, as if earning £25-30k in Nottingham means you're going to be living in a cardboard box down by the river. Last night in Discord I saw this job posting being discussed last night by a largely-American crowd with no clue on UK pay or cost of living, making statements like "they need to offer at least 80k if they want anyone to get out of bed for that". Anyone living near Lenton is going to laugh at an idea like that, but it can definitely seem reasonable if you're from central London, or Amsterdam, or California.

Meanwhile some others are going to be reading these threads and feeling awful about their own employment situation because their income (which may be perfectly fine for where they live in the UK) is being looked down on by others in totally different living situations.

Let's all (and this isn't directed to anyone in particular) take a breath and think who else is going to read what you're writing before posting.

Well, corporations in general will try their hardest to underpay staff regardless of the situation, income, or value they add to the company. Part of their nature is exploiting their workforce to the best of the ability as cut costs to them are the same as profit. Pretty much every worker outside of management is underpaid considering it is their work that allows the company to do anything.

Don't forget also, if someone actually DOES swoop in and solve all of the balance issues at GW, that will become the expectation - the bare minimum. It would actually incentivize GW to keep hunting for eager players willing to under-sell their labor.

I'd love to be surprised, see them offering drastically higher wages for the position, but unless someone knows the actual number the 25k is the best we have to work with. As far as I can remember, GW prefers to offer one off windfall bonuses in place of higher wages - I think they had big announcements about doing that once or twice.

 xttz wrote:


By it's nature this hobby attracts customers from all over the world and tends to favour people with more disposable income, and both of which can heavily distort perceptions. I've noticed a borderline-toxic tendency in these conversations to disparage anything percieved as a low income, as if earning £25-30k in Nottingham means you're going to be living in a cardboard box down by the river. Last night in Discord I saw this job posting being discussed last night by a largely-American crowd with no clue on UK pay or cost of living, making statements like "they need to offer at least 80k if they want anyone to get out of bed for that". Anyone living near Lenton is going to laugh at an idea like that, but it can definitely seem reasonable if you're from central London, or Amsterdam, or California.

Meanwhile some others are going to be reading these threads and feeling awful about their own employment situation because their income (which may be perfectly fine for where they live in the UK) is being looked down on by others in totally different living situations.

Let's all (and this isn't directed to anyone in particular) take a breath and think who else is going to read what you're writing before posting.

Whilst I fully understand what you're saying and I respect everyone out there working, no matter the role or salary. We need and could not function without shelf stackers, till people, cleaners etc that tend to be at the lower end of the scale.

The big bit that is relevant here though is relevant stresses, expertise and pressures involved in the job. Nobody is saying a min wage job makes them a worthless person, what we are saying is that the supposed wage for a GW games designer isn't worth the relative stress and entry criteria.

Imagine having to read being slagged off every day on the sites that discuss the thing you love. It will, I dare say, be an utterly miserable role to have.

Dudeface wrote:

 xttz wrote:


By it's nature this hobby attracts customers from all over the world and tends to favour people with more disposable income, and both of which can heavily distort perceptions. I've noticed a borderline-toxic tendency in these conversations to disparage anything percieved as a low income, as if earning £25-30k in Nottingham means you're going to be living in a cardboard box down by the river. Last night in Discord I saw this job posting being discussed last night by a largely-American crowd with no clue on UK pay or cost of living, making statements like "they need to offer at least 80k if they want anyone to get out of bed for that". Anyone living near Lenton is going to laugh at an idea like that, but it can definitely seem reasonable if you're from central London, or Amsterdam, or California.

Meanwhile some others are going to be reading these threads and feeling awful about their own employment situation because their income (which may be perfectly fine for where they live in the UK) is being looked down on by others in totally different living situations.

Let's all (and this isn't directed to anyone in particular) take a breath and think who else is going to read what you're writing before posting.

Whilst I fully understand what you're saying and I respect everyone out there working, no matter the role or salary. We need and could not function without shelf stackers, till people, cleaners etc that tend to be at the lower end of the scale.

The big bit that is relevant here though is relevant stresses, expertise and pressures involved in the job. Nobody is saying a min wage job makes them a worthless person, what we are saying is that the supposed wage for a GW games designer isn't worth the relative stress and entry criteria.

Imagine having to read being slagged off every day on the sites that discuss the thing you love. It will, I dare say, be an utterly miserable role to have.

That's why it's a bit of folk wisdom to never make your hobby your job. Even if the customers/community were a bit... jollier than the Warhammer community is, the pressures and worries that come along with it being a job have a tendency to drain your enjoyment in a short amount of time. And by the way, from what you can glance online, the people in the actual logistics and sales queues at GW seem to get paid (much?) better and more according to market standards, it's mostly the design and creative side of things that gets short-changed.

 xttz wrote:


But onto my main point. I think with your post you've touched onto a larger problem here in how the hobby community discusses issues like this.

By it's nature this hobby attracts customers from all over the world and tends to favour people with more disposable income, and both of which can heavily distort perceptions. I've noticed a borderline-toxic tendency in these conversations to disparage anything percieved as a low income, as if earning £25-30k in Nottingham means you're going to be living in a cardboard box down by the river. Last night in Discord I saw this job posting being discussed last night by a largely-American crowd with no clue on UK pay or cost of living, making statements like "they need to offer at least 80k if they want anyone to get out of bed for that". Anyone living near Lenton is going to laugh at an idea like that, but it can definitely seem reasonable if you're from central London, or Amsterdam, or California.

Meanwhile some others are going to be reading these threads and feeling awful about their own employment situation because their income (which may be perfectly fine for where they live in the UK) is being looked down on by others in totally different living situations.

Let's all (and this isn't directed to anyone in particular) take a breath and think who else is going to read what you're writing before posting.

I agree that £25k is not a terrible salary and it certainly isn't going to put you on the poverty line in the Nottingham area. I've experienced a similar issue to you in discussing salaries with Americans, probably because working conditions in the UK with things like annual leave and not needing to worry about health benefits can heavily skew perceptions of what is reasonable, before you even get into differences in cost and style of living.

That said, the list of skills and experience listed in that job are way above what I would expect for £25k a year. This is a job where you are responsible for one of the most difficult parts of running the world's most popular tabletop wargame. The decision-making and project management requirements alone would put you much closer to, if not over, £30k in the organisation I work for. In addition, many people taking on a £25k job with responsibilities similar to this will almost certainly have an identified promotion path, so it's not such a big problem getting a lowish salary in order to get your foot in the door. From the testimony we have from ex-Design Studio staff it seems like not only is there no real promotion pathway laid out, they don't even seem to have much of a salary structure in the first place, with people doing very similar jobs on different salaries. Then there's the requirement to relocate to Nottingham, which seems pretty short-sighted in the modern world.

Slipspace wrote:

 xttz wrote:


But onto my main point. I think with your post you've touched onto a larger problem here in how the hobby community discusses issues like this.

By it's nature this hobby attracts customers from all over the world and tends to favour people with more disposable income, and both of which can heavily distort perceptions. I've noticed a borderline-toxic tendency in these conversations to disparage anything percieved as a low income, as if earning £25-30k in Nottingham means you're going to be living in a cardboard box down by the river. Last night in Discord I saw this job posting being discussed last night by a largely-American crowd with no clue on UK pay or cost of living, making statements like "they need to offer at least 80k if they want anyone to get out of bed for that". Anyone living near Lenton is going to laugh at an idea like that, but it can definitely seem reasonable if you're from central London, or Amsterdam, or California.

Meanwhile some others are going to be reading these threads and feeling awful about their own employment situation because their income (which may be perfectly fine for where they live in the UK) is being looked down on by others in totally different living situations.

Let's all (and this isn't directed to anyone in particular) take a breath and think who else is going to read what you're writing before posting.

I agree that £25k is not a terrible salary and it certainly isn't going to put you on the poverty line in the Nottingham area. I've experienced a similar issue to you in discussing salaries with Americans, probably because working conditions in the UK with things like annual leave and not needing to worry about health benefits can heavily skew perceptions of what is reasonable, before you even get into differences in cost and style of living.

That said, the list of skills and experience listed in that job are way above what I would expect for £25k a year. This is a job where you are responsible for one of the most difficult parts of running the world's most popular tabletop wargame. The decision-making and project management requirements alone would put you much closer to, if not over, £30k in the organisation I work for. In addition, many people taking on a £25k job with responsibilities similar to this will almost certainly have an identified promotion path, so it's not such a big problem getting a lowish salary in order to get your foot in the door. From the testimony we have from ex-Design Studio staff it seems like not only is there no real promotion pathway laid out, they don't even seem to have much of a salary structure in the first place, with people doing very similar jobs on different salaries. Then there's the requirement to relocate to Nottingham, which seems pretty short-sighted in the modern world.

About the 'poverty line' thing:

I looked it up before commenting, because i like facts. I checked three different sources, and each of them gave total costs of living for Nottingham as ~ 1500+ pounds for everything including rent and utilities. One of these sources was oriented especially towards students, so i don't think they're aiming for especially high-class accomodations etc. For a single person with no dependants, 25k become almost exactly 21k after taxes. 21k breaks down to 1750 pounds a month, so going by the above numbers, you're only 250 pounds up each month, or 3k a year. This does not take the cost of relocating etc. into account. Can you live on that? Absolutely, because again, everything you need day-to-day is included in the cost of living. But on the other hand, you're not living comfortably or with a lot of financial safety: as i said before, you're one broken down car or e.g. washing machine away from major problems, at least on short notice. It's a position that would maybe be attractive or tenable for a recent graduate or someone just starting out, but not for the seasoned, experienced professional that they seem to be looking for. I don't know enough about the UK system in general to comment on how this position at that pay would be evaluated for someone with a family to take care of, so no opening of that particular can of worms from me.

GW are assuming whatever "staff discount" they are offering which will be part of this is likely a significant draw for anyone even remotely likely to apply though

and presumably will assume they will have several applicants were are able to unstick their tongue from the bus window to get to the interview and as such will fill the position with someone who will broadly do as they are told at that salary

If you want to be a game designer... do this for a few years to pay the bills while developing your own designs, build up contacts in the industry, eventually crowd-fund your own game design with the "GW game designer for 2 years" giving you some credibility.

It's not a bad path if you're in your 20s and that's your dream. It's bad for GW of course because it means it inevitably attracts people who just want it as a stepping stone.

Speaking as someone in the UK, even with the current level of inflation I don't think you'd need to spend £1500 a month to live in Nottingham unless you were renting somewhere in the upper bracket of potential properties.

The issue though is the rampant inflation of recent times. £25k today is now the equivalent of around £18k in 2015. Its therefore becoming quite a low wage. If however you inflation uplift £25k to say £32-33k today, I don't think its an unreasonable salary for who the advert is aimed at.
Which I think is the disagreement. I don't think they are looking for an experienced professional. They are looking for an enthusiastic nerd - probably mid to late 20s, with no family commitments.

I mean there's no obvious management responsibility. There's no required qualifications or special training. The only experience is having played some 40k and a track record of flushing some weighted dice down the toilet.

Salaries etc aside, I totally understand why they would need somebody to look at tournament results and meta but I really wish GW would stop focusing on tournament results for matched play rules and perceived "balance".

Tournaments do not represent the majority of matched play games and most tournaments don't even use the current rules (something is always changed at most tournaments I've been to).

GW should stop allowing its game to be influenced by tournament play and focus on balancing the rules as they are now, not balanced compared to how they are being played in tournaments.

The constant meta-chasing is what put me off 9th edition and we are already seeing the same happen in 10th - rules changes already based on initial tournament results which are skewed at best.

StraightSilver wrote:
Salaries etc aside, I totally understand why they would need somebody to look at tournament results and meta but I really wish GW would stop focusing on tournament results for matched play rules and perceived "balance".

Tournaments do not represent the majority of matched play games and most tournaments don't even use the current rules (something is always changed at most tournaments I've been to).

GW should stop allowing its game to be influenced by tournament play and focus on balancing the rules as they are now, not balanced compared to how they are being played in tournaments.

The constant meta-chasing is what put me off 9th edition and we are already seeing the same happen in 10th - rules changes already based on initial tournament results which are skewed at best.

Well, there's the data you want, and there's the data you have... tournament results is a big pile of information they can access in a somewhat-structured form and essentially for free, while other forms of data collection bring at least some sort of associated cost and have their own problems (good luck on getting anything approaching reality from a survey, for example). So the 'best' way of going about it - in the corporate sense where 'free' is automatically very good and being seen doing something is more important than actual results - is taking what you can get with almost no effort instead of doing independent, and comparatively expensive, research.

Pay for peanuts, get peanuts.

If monet wasn't an issue, and I lived in Nottingham, it'd be worth a shot.

As it is, asking to move to Nottingham on what is going to be a low to average wage... nope!

GW can afford to pay a lot more, and get better qualified/experienced people, which ultimately helps them.

Dudeface wrote:

 kodos wrote:
some thoughts:

that GW is searching for a professional playtester after the game is released and most of it printed tells me to not expect a lot in the next 6-12 months and that even with this new position the game gets necessary changes by the time it is halfway thru and work on 11th already ongoing

that they want them to settle in Nottingham while this position is for someone heavily invested into the game, so a person that would have everything necessary to do it at home means it likely someone already in that area or a person that wants to get into the game design community and "game designer at GW" makes a good entry


but at least GW acknowledge the state of the game and that it needs to do something about it

Honestly the recruitment criteria if the supposed salary is true is utterly mental. To relocate to a new city for a low paid job for someone with a proven track record of 40k competitive event wins is like a goldilocks situation.
.

Truthfully, parts of it read like jobs I've applied for in the past- little fingerprints that suggest they have someone and the job posting was specifically written for that person, but they're legally required to post the job publicly anyway.

They'll take submissions of course, and even do a few interviews, but [Bob] has the job, unless things unexpectedly go to cack.

StraightSilver wrote:
Salaries etc aside, I totally understand why they would need somebody to look at tournament results and meta but I really wish GW would stop focusing on tournament results for matched play rules and perceived "balance".

Tournaments do not represent the majority of matched play games and most tournaments don't even use the current rules (something is always changed at most tournaments I've been to).

GW should stop allowing its game to be influenced by tournament play and focus on balancing the rules as they are now, not balanced compared to how they are being played in tournaments.

The constant meta-chasing is what put me off 9th edition and we are already seeing the same happen in 10th - rules changes already based on initial tournament results which are skewed at best.

insert why not both meme

Many other companies that care about the health of their game systems balance the game for all the many ways the game is commonly played. WOTC balances Magic for sealed, draft, commander, standard, modern, vintage, pauper,... With different levels of balance and priority of course, but all things are considered to some degree. GW can't even get one format right sometimes.

Magic being balanced? That's a good joke.

compared to 40k, Magic has perfect balance

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Magic being balanced? That's a good joke.

It's 'balanced' in the sense that it's working as intended, i.e. purposefully upsetting the balance every new release to shift the meta and make people buy new stuff. Also, this 'balance' is reached by banning everything that makes problems, and it also means that 99% of the cards are only useable in standard or other current-meta formats because they're too underpowered to perform in the eternal or historic formats. Not at all how Warhammer should work.

There's multiple valid ways to play. Player skill matters a lot. And in many formats you can be casually competitive for less than the cost of a Combat Patrol Box.

If 40k players were only so lucky.

40k is like Magic if everyone was forced to play CEDH(competitive commander). Where you need $1500 of fast mana to even think about trying to play. Versus casual commander where you can get by with a $40 dollar precon and about that much in additional singles.

StraightSilver wrote:
Salaries etc aside, I totally understand why they would need somebody to look at tournament results and meta but I really wish GW would stop focusing on tournament results for matched play rules and perceived "balance".

Tournaments do not represent the majority of matched play games and most tournaments don't even use the current rules (something is always changed at most tournaments I've been to).

GW should stop allowing its game to be influenced by tournament play and focus on balancing the rules as they are now, not balanced compared to how they are being played in tournaments.

I'm curious how you think they would do it differently? They're essentially using the same rule set and figures, they're just "stressed" more in a tournament setting. I'm very much in agreement that GW shouldn't be focusing on tournament play, but when it comes to game balance, I'm struggling to see what that looks like in terms of actions they could take?

StraightSilver wrote:
Salaries etc aside, I totally understand why they would need somebody to look at tournament results and meta but I really wish GW would stop focusing on tournament results for matched play rules and perceived "balance".

That's not the problem. The problem is they're incapable of looking outside thr number and not understanding why things happen.

Look at the current Wraithknight fix. They don't understand what they do.

deano2099 wrote:

StraightSilver wrote:
Salaries etc aside, I totally understand why they would need somebody to look at tournament results and meta but I really wish GW would stop focusing on tournament results for matched play rules and perceived "balance".

Tournaments do not represent the majority of matched play games and most tournaments don't even use the current rules (something is always changed at most tournaments I've been to).

GW should stop allowing its game to be influenced by tournament play and focus on balancing the rules as they are now, not balanced compared to how they are being played in tournaments.

I'm curious how you think they would do it differently? They're essentially using the same rule set and figures, they're just "stressed" more in a tournament setting. I'm very much in agreement that GW shouldn't be focusing on tournament play, but when it comes to game balance, I'm struggling to see what that looks like in terms of actions they could take?

the usual argument is: no one plays to win a game outside tournaments but for fun, so you need to measure the "fun" and how often the factions wins

TBH, I'm not really sure rule designers do get a high salary anywhere in the game industry, be it "matched play" or not. It's not a GW centered problem from my point of view.

As for the analysis of data tournaments for "balance", I'm not surprised they use it on top of their list. It's the only reliable data they can easily gather and get exploitable information, after all - rest is too subjective and not enough empirical.

Some here make fun of it here, but the truth is, it's actually a good way to make your name in the market and a lot of young people rather see the passion first (and their dream) than what they should be paid for the amount of work it implies. Sadly, but who can really blame them ?

Well, I hope it will help someone to rise in the future.

For Hire. Integral Developer. 25k salary.


Eat your heart out Hemmingway.

And then companies be like "There is a worker shortage, we can't find anyone."

The salary is insulting to be honest. That's like appropiate for a student assistant to an actual game designer.

a_typical_hero wrote:
And then companies be like "There is a worker shortage, we can't find anyone."

The salary is insulting to be honest. That's like appropiate for a student assistant to an actual game designer.

To be fair the role isnt games designer, its developer. And knowing GW and companies of a similar ilk 'development' should probably feature 3 or 4 lines lower in the description than it does here.

Most of the role could fall under the designation of community management or outreach. Most of the trolls on the GW orderline could be considering 'developers' under this description!

The pay is crappy for a developer but not for a 'developer'.

£25K for an entry level job with no professional qualifications required, or even basic qualifications like English or maths GCSE, there’s nothing wrong with that (unless more to advert than in the OP). This is a job for a walk in off the street by the sounds of it, the trickiest requirement to fill is being an established competitive player with a winning record.

the difficult bit will be proving the analytical experience this job will require.

now someone who has been a tournament player and who has been keeping records may actually be able to show this skill

That starting salary is around or better than teachers, nurse, paramedics, all jobs where you need a degree to do them. For this job you we’d to be a Wargamer, it’s not bad really.

Only shows who else isn't get paid enough.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Only shows who else isn't get paid enough.

But I doubt GW could influence government policy on public sector pay by giving a non graduate entry level post an executive wage. Hell, 6 months of strikes by teachers, nurses, paramedics and doctors. and they ain’t budging on public sector pay.

So all in all, not a bad deal in reality.

 stonehorse wrote:
Pay for peanuts, get peanuts.

If monet wasn't an issue, and I lived in Nottingham, it'd be worth a shot.

As it is, asking to move to Nottingham on what is going to be a low to average wage... nope!

GW can afford to pay a lot more, and get better qualified/experienced people, which ultimately helps them.

They don't need super qualified to tweak rules to push what marketing department wants buffed next though.

They want enthusiastic yes-man.

Remember they don't hire for talent by own admission.

Andykp wrote:
That starting salary is around or better than teachers, nurse, paramedics, all jobs where you need a degree to do them. For this job you we’d to be a Wargamer, it’s not bad really.

I just noticed that the role does include an extra week's paid holiday and better pension benefits above what the majority of UK employers will offer.

But I still find it odd that we've had 3 pages of discussion revolve around a salary figure isn't listed in the job advert, and was sourced from "some dude on Reddit" 2-3 years ago.

tneva82 wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
Pay for peanuts, get peanuts.

If monet wasn't an issue, and I lived in Nottingham, it'd be worth a shot.

As it is, asking to move to Nottingham on what is going to be a low to average wage... nope!

GW can afford to pay a lot more, and get better qualified/experienced people, which ultimately helps them.

They don't need super qualified to tweak rules to push what marketing department wants buffed next though.

They want enthusiastic yes-man.

Remember they don't hire for talent by own admission.

I think the phrase is "policy based evidence making", someone able to provide a stats based justification for whatever the marketing boys want to do, or with the skills to tweak what is proposed to get the same end result (this is good enough competitive players rush to buy it) without being quite so game breaking if we are lucky

I mean if you go from "easy mode" broken rules to stuff thats just as powerful but needs a more skilled player to make it work I'd call that a win, and they will still sell loads, likely the same as people rush to the latest netlist before realising the change

 xttz wrote:

Andykp wrote:
That starting salary is around or better than teachers, nurse, paramedics, all jobs where you need a degree to do them. For this job you we’d to be a Wargamer, it’s not bad really.

I just noticed that the role does include an extra week's paid holiday and better pension benefits above what the majority of UK employers will offer.

But I still find it odd that we've had 3 pages of discussion revolve around a salary figure isn't listed in the job advert, and was sourced from "some dude on Reddit" 2-3 years ago.

Some dude on reddit is the best we have because GW does not list salaries as per their own FAQ:

We want people to apply for a job because that’s what they really want to do, not because of the size of the salary. That’s also why we ask you to write a letter explaining why you want the job.

https://jobs.games-workshop.com/application-process/faq

While that in itself is not unusual, it kind of limits the basis on which we can discuss

Tsagualsa wrote:


Some dude on reddit is the best we have because GW does not list salaries as per their own FAQ

It's not the best we have though; there's a quote from James Hewitt on the first page of the thread regarding two studio members getting paid more in 2017.

have seen various companies who think they are being clever not listing a salary or salary range

they are not, list the salary range and:

- people who obviously lack the experience for a position that senior don't apply
- people who are obviously far more experienced for a position that senior don't apply
- you don't waste your and the applicants time

last place I worked at tried that, I put my phone number on the salary box

I actually got the job because they phoned me, I noted to move roles I wanted what I was on, and then an increment above it.

its also a way to manage expectations

 xttz wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:


Some dude on reddit is the best we have because GW does not list salaries as per their own FAQ

It's not the best we have though; there's a quote from James Hewitt on the first page of the thread regarding two studio members getting paid more in 2017.

I know, it was me who quoted it

 xttz wrote:

Andykp wrote:
That starting salary is around or better than teachers, nurse, paramedics, all jobs where you need a degree to do them. For this job you we’d to be a Wargamer, it’s not bad really.

I just noticed that the role does include an extra week's paid holiday and better pension benefits above what the majority of UK employers will offer.

But I still find it odd that we've had 3 pages of discussion revolve around a salary figure isn't listed in the job advert, and was sourced from "some dude on Reddit" 2-3 years ago.

That’s a very good point, could be a six figure salary for all we know! All moot really. Good luck to whoever gets the job and I hope they enjoy it.

Good luck indeed. Theres something to be said about Jobs/money, not everyone wants the same thing and for many having a job that makes you happy and feel good can be as important has high payed jobs.

Extensive experience playing Warhammer 40,000 in a competitive tournament environment, with a demonstrated winning track record.

I wonder if GW will 'let' this person continue to enter tournaments, or if they want them to go to events as their "knowledgeable and approachable ambassador"...?

(Which can you learn more from - playing in a a tournament, or watching a tournament?)

Why wouldn't they be allowed to enter a tournament? It's not like they have cheat codes or reality-warping powers to force the dice to roll the way they want.
At best they'll have a better grasp on new rules updates for the first few (if that) tournaments within a given cycle.

 Gert wrote:
Why wouldn't they be allowed to enter a tournament? It's not like they have cheat codes or reality-warping powers to force the dice to roll the way they want.
At best they'll have a better grasp on new rules updates for the first few (if that) tournaments within a given cycle.

Because advance knowledge of changes is a huge advantage, and because if you're still able to play competitively you have the temptation to use your official role to keep your preferred army in the top tier instead of being a genuinely neutral party. There's a reason serious competitive games like MTG have a policy that once you are hired you can only participate in the most casual tier of tournaments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
That starting salary is around or better than teachers, nurse, paramedics, all jobs where you need a degree to do them. For this job you we’d to be a Wargamer, it’s not bad really.

Really? Because 25k GPB translates to about $15/hour and even a lot of fast food and retail jobs pay better than that. Here that would be an absolute joke of a salary offer for anything with qualifications beyond being a warm body without too many felonies on your record.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Why wouldn't they be allowed to enter a tournament? It's not like they have cheat codes or reality-warping powers to force the dice to roll the way they want.
At best they'll have a better grasp on new rules updates for the first few (if that) tournaments within a given cycle.

Because advance knowledge of changes is a huge advantage, and because if you're still able to play competitively you have the temptation to use your official role to keep your preferred army in the top tier instead of being a genuinely neutral party. There's a reason serious competitive games like MTG have a policy that once you are hired you can only participate in the most casual tier of tournaments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
That starting salary is around or better than teachers, nurse, paramedics, all jobs where you need a degree to do them. For this job you we’d to be a Wargamer, it’s not bad really.

Really? Because 25k GPB translates to about $15/hour and even a lot of fast food and retail jobs pay better than that. Here that would be an absolute joke of a salary offer for anything with qualifications beyond being a warm body without too many felonies on your record.

yeah £25K is pretty good for starting salary in the UK if you are not a professional - many people earn less.

Obviosuly we get stuff over here that I donlt think people in the US get - like 33 days paid holiday a year.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Why wouldn't they be allowed to enter a tournament? It's not like they have cheat codes or reality-warping powers to force the dice to roll the way they want.
At best they'll have a better grasp on new rules updates for the first few (if that) tournaments within a given cycle.

Because advance knowledge of changes is a huge advantage, and because if you're still able to play competitively you have the temptation to use your official role to keep your preferred army in the top tier instead of being a genuinely neutral party. There's a reason serious competitive games like MTG have a policy that once you are hired you can only participate in the most casual tier of tournaments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
That starting salary is around or better than teachers, nurse, paramedics, all jobs where you need a degree to do them. For this job you we’d to be a Wargamer, it’s not bad really.

Really? Because 25k GPB translates to about $15/hour and even a lot of fast food and retail jobs pay better than that. Here that would be an absolute joke of a salary offer for anything with qualifications beyond being a warm body without too many felonies on your record.

Yep, looked it up and everything before I posted.

Andykp wrote:
Yep, looked it up and everything before I posted.

Weird. But I guess if they're content with limiting themselves to a UK applicant pool and accepting that nobody in the US will consider such a low offer something in that range might work. Seems like a pretty bad way to hire though, given GW's annual profit margins vs. the cost of bringing salaries for key roles up to a level where they can attract their choice of talent.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Yep, looked it up and everything before I posted.

Weird. But I guess if they're content with limiting themselves to a UK applicant pool and accepting that nobody in the US will consider such a low offer something in that range might work. Seems like a pretty bad way to hire though, given GW's annual profit margins vs. the cost of bringing salaries for key roles up to a level where they can attract their choice of talent.

Im paramedic by trade myself so won’t be telling the successful global company how to run its business because I know one thing for sure, they would be dog dirt if I was in charge, can barely manage my own finances.

But as that job goes, if the salary is that, £25 grand a year to dick about and write missions for 40K, hell yeah.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Yep, looked it up and everything before I posted.

Weird. But I guess if they're content with limiting themselves to a UK applicant pool and accepting that nobody in the US will consider such a low offer something in that range might work. Seems like a pretty bad way to hire though, given GW's annual profit margins vs. the cost of bringing salaries for key roles up to a level where they can attract their choice of talent.

Well yeah, it's based in Nottingham so I think they are looking at UK applicants. Wages are generally higher in the US, but the cost of living is much higher too, and holiday allowance much worse.
You can cut out any costs for health insurance for a start.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Yep, looked it up and everything before I posted.

Weird. But I guess if they're content with limiting themselves to a UK applicant pool and accepting that nobody in the US will consider such a low offer something in that range might work. Seems like a pretty bad way to hire though, given GW's annual profit margins vs. the cost of bringing salaries for key roles up to a level where they can attract their choice of talent.

Relocation to Nottingham is needed, whilst it might appear unreasonably low to a US applicant, there's a lot of stuff you won't have to pay for that you would back home, such as health care, a centralised body that do taxes for you, greater annual leave and parental rights etc.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Because advance knowledge of changes is a huge advantage, and because if you're still able to play competitively you have the temptation to use your official role to keep your preferred army in the top tier instead of being a genuinely neutral party. There's a reason serious competitive games like MTG have a policy that once you are hired you can only participate in the most casual tier of tournaments.

Considering how quickly 40k players seem to break new rules or army books, I seriously doubt that. I mean it took what all of 12 hours for people to find the most utterly busted 10th combos from the second the Index cards dropped?
And with regard to keeping one army in a top tier, because they prefer it, that's going to get caught pretty damn quickly. It's also not like this is the only person doing this job and there will be oversight from a senior team member. It's not like the rules team is just going to let whoever gets this job do whatever they want when they want with zero oversight or checks.
All that being said, I'm fairly certain there will be some sort of caveat for whoever does this job that they can't participate in X, Y, Z tournaments, likely those that are associated with GW for example. We know that GW staff can only ever enter the Open Category for Golden Demon, for example.

Even if there's no actual advantage, it still leaves a sour taste in some people's mouths and experience if "guy who designed game wins big event" happens.

 Overread wrote:
Even if there's no actual advantage, it still leaves a sour taste in some people's mouths and experience if "guy who designed game wins big event" happens.

It can be an issue if cash or cash-equivalent prizes are involved, too.

Can't see events being happy with anyone who is involved with the rules writing process entering events

now actually being at said events, monitoring, recording, and playing casual games outside the scoring system (or making up numbers as a non-scoring player perhaps) or in demo games then yes for sure

thing is to actually be able to do the job, with the requirements they have listed will require someone active on the tournament circuit, and will require them to remain so

would be harder to keep such a role secret, not impossible, but harder

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Why wouldn't they be allowed to enter a tournament? It's not like they have cheat codes or reality-warping powers to force the dice to roll the way they want.
At best they'll have a better grasp on new rules updates for the first few (if that) tournaments within a given cycle.

Because advance knowledge of changes is a huge advantage, and because if you're still able to play competitively you have the temptation to use your official role to keep your preferred army in the top tier instead of being a genuinely neutral party. There's a reason serious competitive games like MTG have a policy that once you are hired you can only participate in the most casual tier of tournaments.

Competitive gambling games like Magic can do whatever they want to appear hard core. Advance knowledge of changes is very frequently countered by having waded through all of the changes that were tried and discarded, sometimes forgetting which changes actually made it through the process.

also because virtually all sports have the distinction between those who compete and those who are part of the governing body

for better or worse all GW employees are part of the "governing body"

More likely new GW Match Play Game Designer is embarrassed by the lack of foresight of janky, meta altering shifts in play their new rules create.

GW business as usual.

 Gert wrote:
Considering how quickly 40k players seem to break new rules or army books, I seriously doubt that. I mean it took what all of 12 hours for people to find the most utterly busted 10th combos from the second the Index cards dropped?

Maybe, but remember GW's inventory problems and how often top-tier units go out of stock. I bet you'd be pretty frustrated losing to a GW employee who had advance knowledge, bought three copies of the unit that was going to be overpowered, and sent them off for commission painting to be ready for a tournament a week after the codex release while you're going to be looking at an out of stock page for the next few months until GW nerfs the unit.

And with regard to keeping one army in a top tier, because they prefer it, that's going to get caught pretty damn quickly.

But would it really? We already have credible theories that certain GW employees have their pet factions and AFAIK Phil Kelly hasn't been fired yet.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Maybe, but remember GW's inventory problems and how often top-tier units go out of stock. I bet you'd be pretty frustrated losing to a GW employee who had advance knowledge, bought three copies of the unit that was going to be overpowered, and sent them off for commission painting to be ready for a tournament a week after the codex release while you're going to be looking at an out of stock page for the next few months until GW nerfs the unit.

I'd be more frustrated losing to a flavour-of-the-month jerk who did the bare minimum for painting like we saw when Drukhari and Harlequins were busted. But also no generally I don't get annoyed when I see things that are good in-game and know they are out of stock on the webstore because that would be me assuming the worst about someone, which isn't fair to them. I also don't judge people for getting commission painters to do their stuff. Not everyone has the time or ability to paint to the standards they are happy with, heck me and a friend have done it for a few people in our group before.

What I'm interested to know is, how do you know the people you're playing against work for the 40k rules team? They're hardly going to wear a big hat that says "I work for GW".
And as I said earlier, GW staff are heavily restricted from doing a lot of things already and the chances are any tournament this individual will play in needs to be either associated with GW (so the big ones like LVO or Adepticon) and not have any form of cash prize which according to my knowledge, isn't a big deal anyway.

But would it really? We already have credible theories that certain GW employees have their pet factions and AFAIK Phil Kelly hasn't been fired yet.

And which army would that be? Cos I played the Ork Codex he wrote for a really long time and it was as far from broken as you could be.

having been part of a club where some players were dubbed "three colours maximum" and one tried to argue the base being black was the third colour I know the sort of players you mean

that said the Painting Phase has had a recent one with Peachy noting there have been issues with codexes written by fans of a faction at GW being a little bit too much

 Gert wrote:
But also no generally I don't get annoyed when I see things that are good in-game and know they are out of stock on the webstore because that would be me assuming the worst about someone, which isn't fair to them. I also don't judge people for getting commission painters to do their stuff. Not everyone has the time or ability to paint to the standards they are happy with, heck me and a friend have done it for a few people in our group before.

I'm not saying that commission painting is bad, the issue here is unfair access. The GW employee knows in advance to send it off to the commission painter to have it ready for the first post-release event while a normal player has to wait for the rules to be revealed and then try to get into the commission queue (if GW doesn't run out of stock first). And because the normal player has to wait until the rules are released to start the process they may not have their stuff finished in time to use it before the inevitable nerfs hit and something else (which the GW employee is already prepared for) becomes the new meta pick.

What I'm interested to know is, how do you know the people you're playing against work for the 40k rules team?

The same way we know other people work for GW? We know that the guy who used to run the NOVA Open is now working for GW and he even uses his real name while interacting with the community on behalf of GW. And even if we don't know it there's still a fairness issue and there needs to be a public policy like WOTC has where employees are not permitted in anything but the most casual of events.

And which army would that be?

Eldar. It's well known that Eldar are his pet army, both in rules and in his books. It's part of why his Tau novels are so painfully bad, he doesn't understand any non-Eldar faction and consistently writes grimderp nonsense for them.

And oh look, right on schedule a new edition launches with Eldar being egregiously overpowered across the entire faction.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


And oh look, right on schedule a new edition launches with Eldar being egregiously overpowered across the entire faction.

You know Phil Kelly hasn't worked on 40k for several years right? He's worked on AoS, ever since they split the studio in to separate teams.

You seem to be being a little bit paranoid, to be honest.

You know how company employees can't enter competitions run by the company?

It might be a bit like that for someone writing the rules for tournaments that they then participate in.

I don't know what would be expected for the UK, but the salary does seem low, really low. More like an intern's wage.

pgmason wrote:
You know Phil Kelly hasn't worked on 40k for several years right? He's worked on AoS, ever since they split the studio in to separate teams.

You seem to be being a little bit paranoid, to be honest.

If you think he hasn't been at least unofficially keeping an eye on things and giving feedback about his pet faction I have a bridge to sell you.

£20-21k in the UK is about average for an entry level position in an office environment if that is the pay being offered for this role.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Considering how quickly 40k players seem to break new rules or army books, I seriously doubt that. I mean it took what all of 12 hours for people to find the most utterly busted 10th combos from the second the Index cards dropped?

Maybe, but remember GW's inventory problems and how often top-tier units go out of stock. I bet you'd be pretty frustrated losing to a GW employee who had advance knowledge, bought three copies of the unit that was going to be overpowered, and sent them off for commission painting to be ready for a tournament a week after the codex release while you're going to be looking at an out of stock page for the next few months until GW nerfs the unit.

And with regard to keeping one army in a top tier, because they prefer it, that's going to get caught pretty damn quickly.

But would it really? We already have credible theories that certain GW employees have their pet factions and AFAIK Phil Kelly hasn't been fired yet.

Stuff like this is why this is a gak position. People are going to absolutely hate you. Even if you somehow actually did manage to make a perfectly balanced game (impossible), people would still claim you have favorite armies and armies you hate. It sounds like GW wants this person to be public too, going around socializing in tourneys, so you get to meet insufferable neckbeards who will complain to your face as well.

 Adeptekon wrote:
I don't know what would be expected for the UK, but the salary does seem low, really low. More like an intern's wage.

The UK doesn't really have much of an intern culture- we get graduate schemes at large companies, but those and entry level professional office roles are similar in pay.

deano2099 wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:
I don't know what would be expected for the UK, but the salary does seem low, really low. More like an intern's wage.

The UK doesn't really have much of an intern culture- we get graduate schemes at large companies, but those and entry level professional office roles are similar in pay.

Yup, interns not really a thing. You either have an apprentice who is a paid for educate on the job type or junior who is someone who lacks experience but is theoretically capable/qualified.

 Gert wrote:
£20-21k in the UK is about average for an entry level position in an office environment if that is the pay being offered for this role.

UK minimum wage for full time (40hrs per week) work is £21,673.60 pa. (£10.42 per hour). Anyone in full time work earning £20-£21k is being illegally underpaid.

Aash wrote:

 Gert wrote:
£20-21k in the UK is about average for an entry level position in an office environment if that is the pay being offered for this role.

UK minimum wage for full time (40hrs per week) work is £21,673.60 pa. (£10.42 per hour). Anyone in full time work earning £20-£21k is being illegally underpaid.

Most office jobs are 37.5 hours in my experience.

35 hours for me.

Dudeface wrote:

Aash wrote:

 Gert wrote:
£20-21k in the UK is about average for an entry level position in an office environment if that is the pay being offered for this role.

UK minimum wage for full time (40hrs per week) work is £21,673.60 pa. (£10.42 per hour). Anyone in full time work earning £20-£21k is being illegally underpaid.

Most office jobs are 37.5 hours in my experience.

That’s not been my experience since the early 2000s. But I accept that it may be the case. That being said, 37.5 hours a week would be an annual salary of £20,319. My experience is that most office jobs (even at entry level) pay more than minimum wage. I still hold that a full time salary of £20-£21k is unusually low for an office job.

Edit- having looked it up, the ONS says average full time hours in the UK is 36.6 hours per week, so I stand corrected.

Aash wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Aash wrote:

 Gert wrote:
£20-21k in the UK is about average for an entry level position in an office environment if that is the pay being offered for this role.

UK minimum wage for full time (40hrs per week) work is £21,673.60 pa. (£10.42 per hour). Anyone in full time work earning £20-£21k is being illegally underpaid.

Most office jobs are 37.5 hours in my experience.

That’s not been my experience since the early 2000s. But I accept that it may be the case. That being said, 37.5 hours a week would be an annual salary of £20,319. My experience is that most office jobs (even at entry level) pay more than minimum wage. I still hold that a full time salary of £20-£21k is unusually low for an office job.

Edit- having looked it up, the ONS says average full time hours in the UK is 36.6 hours per week, so I stand corrected.

Are you in London by any chance? My entirely anecdotal experience is most London office work is 40 hours (but also higher paid due to London weighting) - outside of London 35 or 37.5 is more common. (35 is the minimum to be considered "full time" employment legally)

Ignore this.

deano2099 wrote:

Aash wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Aash wrote:

 Gert wrote:
£20-21k in the UK is about average for an entry level position in an office environment if that is the pay being offered for this role.

UK minimum wage for full time (40hrs per week) work is £21,673.60 pa. (£10.42 per hour). Anyone in full time work earning £20-£21k is being illegally underpaid.

Most office jobs are 37.5 hours in my experience.

That’s not been my experience since the early 2000s. But I accept that it may be the case. That being said, 37.5 hours a week would be an annual salary of £20,319. My experience is that most office jobs (even at entry level) pay more than minimum wage. I still hold that a full time salary of £20-£21k is unusually low for an office job.

Edit- having looked it up, the ONS says average full time hours in the UK is 36.6 hours per week, so I stand corrected.

Are you in London by any chance? My entirely anecdotal experience is most London office work is 40 hours (but also higher paid due to London weighting) - outside of London 35 or 37.5 is more common. (35 is the minimum to be considered "full time" employment legally)

I’ve lived and worked all over the UK, but currently in the South East and London area.

Gert wrote:Remember to tack on holiday allowance as well. 52 weeks can turn into 48 real quick with them.

Not sure I follow your meaning? Annual leave is paid leave, so annual salary with 4 weeks annual leave would still work out to the annual salary divided by 52 when calculating weekly salary, and then divided by weekly hours for hourly pay. (Alternatively divide by 12 for monthly salary; you wouldn’t divide by 11 to work out monthly salary if you get a month of annual leave).

Totally wasn't thinking there. Brain has been turned to mush with all the heat recently.

I find it mildly amusing that people are worried that GW employees with 'in the know' information are going to be running out to buy up the most broken units to win a tournament which would achieve what exactly?

I know a lot of people put a hell of a lot of weight in tournament winners and the like, but what does it actually achieve these people? Not many branch out and build a following that allows them to do their hobby full time.... So whoop, Auspex Tactics may name drop you in a video, enjoy eating the entry fee and the model and commission painting fee for your 5 minutes of clout... At which point GW will get wind of it and they'd be promptly banned from playing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Additionally, just because a person at GW isn't the writer of a codex, or listed as producing it, doesn't mean they don't have a hand in it, proof reading, game testing etc, there will be plenty of people who can still influence, and if they are well known enough, their say will get more mileage.

It is not a coincidence that Eldar are broken at some point in nearly every edition. Not blaming this on Phil Kelly mind, but they are evidently a fair few peoples pet faction.

The minimum wage is up 33% or so since 2018-19. (£7.83->£10.42) This is why I think £20-22k wasn't a bad starting salary just a few years ago, but would seem a bit light today.

I can see why a GW employee might be banned from a tournament if there was money on the line. If its just glory then I'm not entirely sure why it would matter. If various rules writers at GW had to see what they had wrought they might be more fair minded.

Most tournaments seem to avoid cash prizes probably because it opens them up to more regulation or problems. At best someone would get a box of models or gear associated with a sponsor.
Oh and a big shiny trophy.

 Illumini wrote:
Stuff like this is why this is a gak position. People are going to absolutely hate you. Even if you somehow actually did manage to make a perfectly balanced game (impossible), people would still claim you have favorite armies and armies you hate. It sounds like GW wants this person to be public too, going around socializing in tourneys, so you get to meet insufferable neckbeards who will complain to your face as well.

Yep, and for less salary than the average burger flipper in the US. I'm sure someone will be enough of a fanboy to take the deal just to be part of GW but GW sure isn't trying very hard.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Illumini wrote:
Stuff like this is why this is a gak position. People are going to absolutely hate you. Even if you somehow actually did manage to make a perfectly balanced game (impossible), people would still claim you have favorite armies and armies you hate. It sounds like GW wants this person to be public too, going around socializing in tourneys, so you get to meet insufferable neckbeards who will complain to your face as well.

Yep, and for less salary than the average burger flipper in the US. I'm sure someone will be enough of a fanboy to take the deal just to be part of GW but GW sure isn't trying very hard.

Difficult to compare jobs in different countries - do many Americans get a month's paid holiday a year? Do they get their taxes done for them by the government. Free healthcare etc....

Plus if you are into Warhammer then you get huge reductions on product - which again does have a value.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Illumini wrote:
Stuff like this is why this is a gak position. People are going to absolutely hate you. Even if you somehow actually did manage to make a perfectly balanced game (impossible), people would still claim you have favorite armies and armies you hate. It sounds like GW wants this person to be public too, going around socializing in tourneys, so you get to meet insufferable neckbeards who will complain to your face as well.

Yep, and for less salary than the average burger flipper in the US. I'm sure someone will be enough of a fanboy to take the deal just to be part of GW but GW sure isn't trying very hard.

Difficult to compare jobs in different countries - do many Americans get a month's paid holiday a year? Do they get their taxes done for them by the government. Free healthcare etc....

Plus if you are into Warhammer then you get huge reductions on product - which again does have a value.

Quick Google of the cost of living difference between Nottingham and Grapevine (given that's the warhammer cafe location, nearest proxy I could think of:

You would need around 4,934.7£ (6,321.5$) in Dallas, TX to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 3,500.0£ in Nottingham (assuming you rent in both cities). This calculation uses our Cost of Living Plus Rent Index to compare the cost of living and assume net earnings (after income tax).

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+Kingdom&city1=Nottingham&country2=United+States&city2=Dallas%2C+TX

So yes, can't really make fair comparisons, especially given not having to deal with the guns, abortion law changes and all that other fun stuff Americans seem to need to handle.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Difficult to compare jobs in different countries - do many Americans get a month's paid holiday a year? Do they get their taxes done for them by the government. Free healthcare etc....

Sure, it's not exactly comparable. A burger flipper isn't getting all of that but a burger flipper is also making half as much as even an entry-level engineer/software developer/etc. And in those jobs you do get a month of paid time off, and you can easily pay for the healthcare and tax paperwork while still having a lot of money left over.

The point, whether or not the numbers are exactly comparable, is that the comparison shouldn't be possible at all. A professional job as a public representative of a company with a high level of specific skills and experience should be paying way more than a job that will take any warm body off the street. GW is massively underpaying and limiting themselves to hardcore fanboys who will take a low paying job just to get to be part of GW, not the best talent for the job.

Plus if you are into Warhammer then you get huge reductions on product - which again does have a value.

Not much value. How much do you really think you're going to get out of it? Can you even cross the thousand dollar per year mark in discount value without accumulating a giant pile of shame that is all wasted money? I doubt your value from the discount comes anywhere near the salary gap.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Not much value. How much do you really think you're going to get out of it? Can you even cross the thousand dollar per year mark in discount value without accumulating a giant pile of shame that is all wasted money? I doubt your value from the discount comes anywhere near the salary gap.

They offer a 50% discount on 'most' Citadel products afaik, it's not like in the olden days when employees bought models by weight... also, afaik they're pretty strict in going after re-selling employee discounted stuff, so no genius-level plans of getting richt by flogging stuff on ebay.

Yes but if you are someone who is going to buy that stuff anyway....well thats a BIG saving.

Do you know what's absolutely wild? Nobody actually knows what the pay for this job is because GW isn't telling.
All these comparisons are based on what is almost certainly out-of-date data.

 Gert wrote:
Do you know what's absolutely wild? Nobody actually knows what the pay for this job is because GW isn't telling.
All these comparisons are based on what is almost certainly out-of-date data.

Almost like they should consider advertising the salary since Dakka is at least 50% populated by people overqualifiedfor that role anyway. They might bag someone!

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Difficult to compare jobs in different countries - do many Americans get a month's paid holiday a year? Do they get their taxes done for them by the government. Free healthcare etc....

Sure, it's not exactly comparable. A burger flipper isn't getting all of that but a burger flipper is also making half as much as even an entry-level engineer/software developer/etc. And in those jobs you do get a month of paid time off, and you can easily pay for the healthcare and tax paperwork while still having a lot of money left over.

The point, whether or not the numbers are exactly comparable, is that the comparison shouldn't be possible at all. A professional job as a public representative of a company with a high level of specific skills and experience should be paying way more than a job that will take any warm body off the street. GW is massively underpaying and limiting themselves to hardcore fanboys who will take a low paying job just to get to be part of GW, not the best talent for the job.

I work for an accountancy firm in a global team. American colleagues doing the exact same role as me get paid about twice what I do. I assume most American office jobs in the big cities pay much more than the equivalent UK roles outside of London.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Yep, and for less salary than the average burger flipper in the US. I'm sure someone will be enough of a fanboy to take the deal just to be part of GW but GW sure isn't trying very hard.

This is what I was thinking, so very confused was I. A Walmart cashier makes what $15 now? You would be best not to have a family or a mortgage and take this position.

I would think this would be one of a council of designers so as to have a little diversity in thought and checks on biases.

On the GW staff and tournaments issue - they're always at some event or another. One of the AOS big bods does Carnage (big AOS event) in Manchester every year. Nick Bayton does a ton at WHW.

Conversely, one of their Rules Guys used to attend Guild Ball events but he had to do so with a fake moustache and a fake name as GW didn't like their rules guys playing other systems. I don't want to name him as he's a top lad and i don't ant him to get retroactively bollocked for it, but the system he works on is widely considered to be the best GW game.

On topic - I'm sure it will appeal to lots of 'fan boys', and to a few the salary and benefits will be acceptable and they will have a great old time of it. It is possible to advance in GW too. My old buddy Ray went from Red Shirt in Stockport, to Heavy Metal painter, to head of the terrain design studio.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Difficult to compare jobs in different countries - do many Americans get a month's paid holiday a year? Do they get their taxes done for them by the government. Free healthcare etc....

Sure, it's not exactly comparable. A burger flipper isn't getting all of that but a burger flipper is also making half as much as even an entry-level engineer/software developer/etc.

But (if speculation on salary is correct) this job *does* pay about the same as an entry-level engineer or software developer in the UK.

By all means compare, but it's pointless comparing jobs in entirely different markets. Most people don't realistically have the choice of choosing between working in the US or the UK anyway.

My personal experience is that US friends seem to earn a lot more than me, yet somehow seem to have less money.

The floor on quality of life in the US is waaaaaaay lower. Everything is also inflated as we have blood sucking middle men rentier c-suite types in every industry.

I was looking at Scotland at one point. A comfortable 1 bedroom flat would be 600-900 pounds a month. A one bedroom apartment here is at least $1,200 near a city and >$1800 in a mediocre part of one. Food is more expensive. We pay more in taxes (I count SSI and medicare/medicaid and so should you since you're paying it, it's roughly 25%-30% all told) and get less in services. We also pay healthcare premiums on top of that (~$160 for good insurance per month). Internet and phone data here are $80 and $60 a month and roughly half that in pounds in Scotland?

35,000 pounds (and this is a good salary for Not London from what I've seen) means you make something like 2,000 pounds a month. 800 to rent, you don't need a car because even if transit doesn't super work the towns and cities are eminently walkable. 80 pounds a month for data and internet. Food is... 200-300 pounds a month (hard to get a good read internationally). So you end up with roughly 600-700 pounds to spend on whatever. Making $42,000 (1.2 currency ratio) in the US has you solidly boned if you want to live alone.

PoorGravitasHandling wrote:
The floor on quality of life in the US is waaaaaaay lower. Everything is also inflated as we have blood sucking middle men rentier c-suite types in every industry.

I was looking at Scotland at one point. A comfortable 1 bedroom flat would be 600-900 pounds a month. A one bedroom apartment here is at least $1,200 near a city and >$1800 in a mediocre part of one. Food is more expensive. We pay more in taxes (I count SSI and medicare/medicaid and so should you since you're paying it, it's roughly 25%-30% all told) and get less in services. We also pay healthcare premiums on top of that (~$160 for good insurance per month). Internet and phone data here are $80 and $60 a month and roughly half that in pounds in Scotland?

35,000 pounds (and this is a good salary for Not London from what I've seen) means you make something like 2,000 pounds a month. 800 to rent, you don't need a car because even if transit doesn't super work the towns and cities are eminently walkable. 80 pounds a month for data and internet. Food is... 200-300 pounds a month (hard to get a good read internationally). So you end up with roughly 600-700 pounds to spend on whatever. Making $42,000 (1.2 currency ratio) in the US has you solidly boned if you want to live alone.

Not a UK resident, but Europe in general has been hammered by inflation. One specific point of attention is the (ongoing IMO) energy crisis.

Having worked for an energy company in 2021/2022, there were a fair amount of customers that had to pay monthly advances in excess of
500 EUR for their energy (gas and electricity) bill. The energy prices have dropped since, but with the current geopolitical situation and the
fact that Europe is very much energy dependent from external sources, we're only a harsh winter away from a repeat scenario.

I feel like (if one believes the Hersh reporting) that the energy/inflation crisis is on us post-Nordstream.

PoorGravitasHandling wrote:
Making $42,000 (1.2 currency ratio) in the US has you solidly boned if you want to live alone.

Sure, but a comparable role for that level of qualifications in the US would be paying more like $100-150k, not $42k, to have even a chance of hiring anyone. And make that $200k or more to get your choice of the best candidates and not just the people who are desperate for a new job.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

PoorGravitasHandling wrote:
Making $42,000 (1.2 currency ratio) in the US has you solidly boned if you want to live alone.

Sure, but a comparable role for that level of qualifications in the US would be paying more like $100-150k, not $42k, to have even a chance of hiring anyone. And make that $200k or more to get your choice of the best candidates and not just the people who are desperate for a new job.

According to Glassdoor average board game designer salaries range from $56,000 – $113,000

and a more recent one:

Ultimately, the national average salary of a game developer in the USA is $98,259 per year with a maximum of $123,000

The average salary for a Board Game Designer is £35168 per year in United Kingdom.

Frankly it doesn't need to be a dick waving competition over international salaries, it largely doesn't matter. The point is whether the pay is appropriate for the role in the location advertised at the spec given.

PoorGravitasHandling wrote:
The floor on quality of life in the US is waaaaaaay lower.

Don't live above your means, and do your research. I did.

Dudeface wrote:
The point is whether the pay is appropriate for the role in the location advertised at the spec given.

And the pay isn't appropriate. Describe those requirements in more general terms and you have something like "high-level expert in their field with 5+ years of demonstrated success needed for a high-visibility role in a $500 million company". If you have that level of requirements you either pay those six figure salaries or you get one of two types of people for the job: a bottom of the barrel candidate who can't get a better job anywhere else, or a rabid fanboy who will take a 75% pay cut for the privilege of working at the object of their obsession. GW would be far better off advertising a salary in line with the requirements, opening it to candidates worldwide with the work being primarily remote, and taking the best possible candidate for the job.

Has GW advertised a salary with this position? I thought we were still going on comments made in old forum/news/interview posts about other positions years ago.

 Adeptekon wrote:

PoorGravitasHandling wrote:
The floor on quality of life in the US is waaaaaaay lower.

Don't live above your means, and do your research. I did.

You're not necessarily wrong, but the people saying that bluntly are either the insufferable grindset dudes or conservatives living in Wyoming where rent is three ears of corn

 Overread wrote:
Has GW advertised a salary with this position? I thought we were still going on comments made in old forum/news/interview posts about other positions years ago.

No they have not, and they never do.

 Overread wrote:
Has GW advertised a salary with this position? I thought we were still going on comments made in old forum/news/interview posts about other positions years ago.

They haven't AFAIK, but the fact that they aren't willing to strongly implies that the salary is embarrassingly low and they're hoping to get a candidate emotionally committed in the interview process before revealing it.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Has GW advertised a salary with this position? I thought we were still going on comments made in old forum/news/interview posts about other positions years ago.

They haven't AFAIK, but the fact that they aren't willing to strongly implies that the salary is embarrassingly low and they're hoping to get a candidate emotionally committed in the interview process before revealing it.

We actually do not need to second-guess this, it is precisely their stated intent in not advertising a salary, and directly stated in their FAQ about their hiring process. I quoted it some pages ago.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
The point is whether the pay is appropriate for the role in the location advertised at the spec given.

And the pay isn't appropriate. Describe those requirements in more general terms and you have something like "high-level expert in their field with 5+ years of demonstrated success needed for a high-visibility role in a $500 million company". If you have that level of requirements you either pay those six figure salaries or you get one of two types of people for the job: a bottom of the barrel candidate who can't get a better job anywhere else, or a rabid fanboy who will take a 75% pay cut for the privilege of working at the object of their obsession. GW would be far better off advertising a salary in line with the requirements, opening it to candidates worldwide with the work being primarily remote, and taking the best possible candidate for the job.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, a "six figure" salary would be very high for the UK for this kind of role.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
And the pay isn't appropriate. Describe those requirements in more general terms and you have something like "high-level expert in their field with 5+ years of demonstrated success needed for a high-visibility role in a $500 million company". If you have that level of requirements you either pay those six figure salaries or you get one of two types of people for the job: a bottom of the barrel candidate who can't get a better job anywhere else, or a rabid fanboy who will take a 75% pay cut for the privilege of working at the object of their obsession. GW would be far better off advertising a salary in line with the requirements, opening it to candidates worldwide with the work being primarily remote, and taking the best possible candidate for the job.

Yeah no, that's not accurate in any way, shape, or form. To be earning a six-figure salary we're talking extensive experience in the sector alongside accreditations or higher education with specialised skills. We're talking CFOs, managing directors, and specialised doctors.
This job is playing Warhammer for a living. It is not even remotely in the same ballpark as some of the jobs I've listed above and that sort of paycheck takes decades to earn.

 Gert wrote:
Yeah no, that's not accurate in any way, shape, or form. To be earning a six-figure salary we're talking extensive experience in the sector alongside accreditations or higher education with specialised skills. We're talking CFOs, managing directors, and specialised doctors.

I guess that's a failure of the UK wage scale then. In the US a six figure salary is an engineer/software developer/etc with 1-2 years of experience in the field, with entry level being a minimum of $75k or so. Senior professionals are making more like $2-500k/year, and anything C-level is up in the millions at all but the smallest of companies.

GW can of course scale everything to UK wages but that means they aren't going to attract high-level talent from anywhere that salaries are better, which seems to be a rather significant error when their biggest market is the US.

This job is playing Warhammer for a living. It is not even remotely in the same ballpark as some of the jobs I've listed above and that sort of paycheck takes decades to earn.

That is seriously understating the level of skill and competence required for the job. Maybe GW sees it as "playing warhammer for a living" which is why they are so bad at game design but what they need is someone with a high level of math and analytical skills as well as excellent PR skills.

bobthe4th wrote:
As has been pointed out repeatedly, a "six figure" salary would be very high for the UK for this kind of role.

For context, a six-figure salary here puts you in the top 3-4% of UK taxpayers by income.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

I guess that's a failure of the UK wage scale then.

"The UK needs to nationally pay better wages in order to improve Warhammer" is definitely a bold take.

Probably one I'm not going to disagree with either

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
I guess that's a failure of the UK wage scale then. In the US a six figure salary is an engineer/software developer/etc with 1-2 years of experience in the field, with entry level being a minimum of $75k or so. Senior professionals are making more like $2-500k/year, and anything C-level is up in the millions at all but the smallest of companies.

GW can of course scale everything to UK wages but that means they aren't going to attract high-level talent from anywhere that salaries are better, which seems to be a rather significant error when their biggest market is the US.

As has been stated many many times to you at this point, Americans earn more because they have higher costs of living on average. It's not an error that UK companies pay less than American ones when we don't have to pay £1000 for an ambulance to a hospital.

That is seriously understating the level of skill and competence required for the job. Maybe GW sees it as "playing warhammer for a living" which is why they are so bad at game design but what they need is someone with a high level of math and analytical skills as well as excellent PR skills.

No matter what way you spin this, it's playing Warhammer for a living, not auditing a company or treating long-term respiratory illnesses.

its playing warhammer for a living as part of it, its also being able to draw meaningful conclusions from the experience that GW can take and use to raise profits in some way

the analytical side I'm qualified to do, GW would not pay what I earn for me to do it (we will leave aside my hilariously bad scoring run at warhammer events and only slightly less bad at other games)

I did actually apply to GW (a good few years back) for a different role, I lived in Derby at the time, living with parents.

what GW were offering (I turned it down) essentially would not have covered the cost of travel to work by car, excluding the cost of insurance etc. this was pre-minimum wage but even so they had a policy then of wanting the best and paying below the industry average

for this role they want someone who is good with numbers, yet is unable to compare the salary they are likely offering against what can be earned elsewhere

result is they either get a lot less experience and skill than they want, or they hire someone who has enough wealth to want the job and not care what it pays

all of which aside, they are at least looking

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Yeah no, that's not accurate in any way, shape, or form. To be earning a six-figure salary we're talking extensive experience in the sector alongside accreditations or higher education with specialised skills. We're talking CFOs, managing directors, and specialised doctors.

I guess that's a failure of the UK wage scale then. In the US a six figure salary is an engineer/software developer/etc with 1-2 years of experience in the field, with entry level being a minimum of $75k or so. Senior professionals are making more like $2-500k/year, and anything C-level is up in the millions at all but the smallest of companies.

Six figure salaries are rare in the UK. Wages don't scale as high. I suspect in large part because you're then paying 45% tax on it all. So other benefits like company cars, additional paid leave, share options, private health insurance and so on tend to be the preferred perks at a higher level.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:

PoorGravitasHandling wrote:
The floor on quality of life in the US is waaaaaaay lower.

Don't live above your means, and do your research. I did.

You're not necessarily wrong, but the people saying that bluntly are either the insufferable grindset dudes or conservatives living in Wyoming where rent is three ears of corn

Actually if you re-read it, I said "do your research" rather than "work hard", as I'll assume you already do.

Back to the topic at hand,

 xttz wrote:
"The UK needs to nationally pay better wages in order to improve Warhammer" is definitely a bold take.

More like "GW, a global company, should offer wages appropriate for their largest market so they can attract the best talent instead of the bottom of the barrel candidates who are desperate enough to take a lowball offer."


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leopard wrote:
its playing warhammer for a living as part of it, its also being able to draw meaningful conclusions from the experience that GW can take and use to raise profits in some way

Exactly. The person GW needs is someone with a background in science or engineering, a good understanding of 40k (the easiest part TBH), and a level of PR skills that is rarely found in the analytical types. That's someone who easily has access to six figure salaries, with a path to high six figures as their career advances.

What GW will settle for is a bottom of the barrel fanboy who will tell management whatever they want to hear because "attitude matters more than skills", continuing their record of game design failures.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

What GW will settle for is a bottom of the barrel fanboy who will tell management whatever they want to hear because "attitude matters more than skills", continuing their record of game design failures.

Which is ultimately a weakness. I remember on another thread here Dakka posters said enthusiasm is important since skill can be developed but I strongly disagree. Someone needs a lot of skill first.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

What GW will settle for is a bottom of the barrel fanboy who will tell management whatever they want to hear because "attitude matters more than skills", continuing their record of game design failures.

Which is ultimately a weakness. I remember on another thread here Dakka posters said enthusiasm is important since skill can be developed but I strongly disagree. Someone needs a lot of skill first.

Yep. Enthusiasm over skill is fine when the "skill" in question is how to press the buttons on a cash register. As long as someone has the right attitude you can teach them how to do the job in an hour or two. But it's a profoundly stupid way to run a company when the job requires skills that take years of formal education to develop and years of industry experience to refine.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

What GW will settle for is a bottom of the barrel fanboy who will tell management whatever they want to hear because "attitude matters more than skills", continuing their record of game design failures.

Which is ultimately a weakness. I remember on another thread here Dakka posters said enthusiasm is important since skill can be developed but I strongly disagree. Someone needs a lot of skill first.

Yep. Enthusiasm over skill is fine when the "skill" in question is how to press the buttons on a cash register. As long as someone has the right attitude you can teach them how to do the job in an hour or two. But it's a profoundly stupid way to run a company when the job requires skills that take years of formal education to develop and years of industry experience to refine.

Look at the list of requirements for the role, they're asking for someone with that skillet. Anyone who is playing 40k to a remotely high level should understand probability, trends, general statistical anlysis, be able to monitor the community online, suggest ways for units/missions to play better.

Honestly this is the most frustrating "I'm an American middle manager" thread in a long time. They maybe want to hire someone in order to develop those skills, sometimes investing in someone with the right mindset and base skills to train them up is worth more than just picking existing candidates who come with baggage and egos.

GW needs to attract high-level talent and to do that they need to pay a six-figure salary, or base £75k... Many other sectors in the UK need to attract high level talent, and I would prefer those sectors to get that over toy soldiers.

Firstly, historically the conversion rate of GBP to USD has been anywhere from £1 = $2, to fairly close to even (more so in recent times since the US tanked the global economy in 2008). It's currently £1 = $1.30ish... Let's call it £1 = $1.50

So that $75k salary is now £50k.

Secondly, there are many many many sectors in the UK that generate considerably more money than GW, and comparable jobs are not in £50k per annum realms unless the person happens to be exceptional, in a senior/managing role of a team and a lot of the time based in London.

These jobs I'm specifically thinking of that are comparable in terms of skills, forecasting and ability to process and evaluate high amounts of inconsistent data to still come to meaningful, reliable and valid conclusions that can be implemented into a plan, sometimes on short term notice. These jobs are sport analysts, specifically in Football and working directly for clubs. If an analyst working for Manchester United - a club which generates the best part of double what GW do on a yearly basis are paying on average £35k for an analyst, GW aren't paying double that, and most likely far less because, well, GW, and they can.


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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 xttz wrote:
"The UK needs to nationally pay better wages in order to improve Warhammer" is definitely a bold take.

More like "GW, a global company, should offer wages appropriate for their largest market so they can attract the best talent instead of the bottom of the barrel candidates who are desperate enough to take a lowball offer."

There largest market are middle aged women actually, and I guess middle ages women don't really care about game balance. Source of this is the podcast below.

Do you have the timestamp for that?

So what you're saying is, they should be appealing to make lil timmys mum a game developer

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
There largest market are middle aged women actually, and I guess middle ages women don't really care about game balance. Source of this is the podcast below.

You know perfectly well I was talking about their largest market geographically, not the technicality that parents buying stuff for their kids are the largest percentage of sales.

And $75k is bare minimum entry level salary for an engineering job, GW is looking at more of an equivalent to a mid-level or senior hire and that pushes well into six figures. Their offer may be competitive with low-paying UK jobs but by lowballing the US market they've voluntarily cut themselves off from their biggest candidate pool.

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Dudeface wrote:
They maybe want to hire someone in order to develop those skills, sometimes investing in someone with the right mindset and base skills to train them up is worth more than just picking existing candidates who come with baggage and egos.

How has that worked so far? Sure seems to me like their process has been a pretty dismal failure, as here we are once again starting a new edition with egregious balance errors that even token playtesting should have caught.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
There largest market are middle aged women actually, and I guess middle ages women don't really care about game balance. Source of this is the podcast below.

You know perfectly well I was talking about their largest market geographically, not the technicality that parents buying stuff for their kids are the largest percentage of sales.

GW seem to be dead-set on seeing themselves as a quaint british shop, which compounds their problem - their largest market by far is the US (roughly half of all revenues) followed by the EU (~ quarter), while the UK only makes up for about 85% of the remaining quarter. Their self-image has been detached from the reality of this for quite some time.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
These jobs I'm specifically thinking of that are comparable in terms of skills, forecasting and ability to process and evaluate high amounts of inconsistent data to still come to meaningful, reliable and valid conclusions that can be implemented into a plan, sometimes on short term notice. These jobs are sport analysts, specifically in Football and working directly for clubs. If an analyst working for Manchester United - a club which generates the best part of double what GW do on a yearly basis are paying on average £35k for an analyst, GW aren't paying double that, and most likely far less because, well, GW, and they can.

Honestly there's a few people here reading "strong analytical and problem-solving skills" or "excellent communication and collaboration abilities" in the job advert and jumping to assume these skills are required on the same level as football clubs or banks, who use them to deal with multi-million pound transactions every day. They definitely won't be. In a position like this, phrases like these are just code for "can you use Excel" and "can you work in an office environment without actively causing HR issues". You'll find the same lines used in job adverts for entry-level accounts clerks or purchasing dept roles across the country.

It's quite likely that any data analysis done by this individual for things like evaluating tournament trends will only be slightly more complex than GW's current win rate metrics, and only used to make fancy graphs in WarCom articles with captions like:
"Our data shows that Redemptor dreadnoughts appeared in 55% of winning Space Marine tournament lists this month, therefore they get a +20pt increase"

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Source of this is the podcast below.

Spoiler:

This video is around 2 hours, but is definitely worth a watch if anyone wants to know how and why GW operates the way it does. In particular it clearly explains why they don't sell things like dropper bottles, airbrushes, and other products commonly requested by hobby veterans.

The guy spilling the beans did leave GW in 2016, so any details are largely from the Kirby era.

The largest geographical market doesn't matter when the headquarters isn't there and never will be.
GW is a British company and its not going to offer US salaries when the economic circumstances in the country the company is based in are heavily divergent.
Just because basic wages are higher doesn't mean Americans are better than Brits.

 Gert wrote:
The largest geographical market doesn't matter when the headquarters isn't there and never will be.
GW is a British company and its not going to offer US salaries when the economic circumstances in the country the company is based in are heavily divergent.
Just because basic wages are higher doesn't mean Americans are better than Brits.

GW is a global company with US operations and viewing themselves as a "UK company" is silly in the age of easy remote work. It's not 1980 anymore and it's time for GW to join the modern world.

And I never said that Americans are better because of higher wages, I said the US is GW's biggest market and has their biggest competitive scene. Ruling out that talent pool by offering a salary that is an absolute joke by non-UK standards is a serious mistake.


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 xttz wrote:
In a position like this, phrases like these are just code for "can you use Excel" and "can you work in an office environment without actively causing HR issues". You'll find the same lines used in job adverts for entry-level accounts clerks or purchasing dept roles across the country.

Correct, when talking about the kind of person GW expects to hire. I'm talking about the kind of person GW should hire if they want the job to be done properly. I'm well aware that GW will say "enthusiasm matters more than ability" and hire a yes man who will contribute little of value to quality game design but do a great job of telling management how right they are about everything.

It's quite likely that any data analysis done by this individual for things like evaluating tournament trends will only be slightly more complex than GW's current win rate metrics, and only used to make fancy graphs in WarCom articles with captions like:
"Our data shows that Redemptor dreadnoughts appeared in 55% of winning Space Marine tournament lists this month, therefore they get a +20pt increase"

And that is why GW continues to fail.

GW is a company that sells internationally and operates a storage facility in the USA. It doesn't have offices in the USA or mainland Europe anymore so IMO that argument doesn't stand up.
And I'm sorry but "GW should pay more so Americans can get UK based jobs" is just funny. I'll be over here enjoying my free health care and not having to pay someone to file my taxes.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Gert wrote:
The largest geographical market doesn't matter when the headquarters isn't there and never will be.
GW is a British company and its not going to offer US salaries when the economic circumstances in the country the company is based in are heavily divergent.
Just because basic wages are higher doesn't mean Americans are better than Brits.

GW is a global company with US operations and viewing themselves as a "UK company" is silly in the age of easy remote work. It's not 1980 anymore and it's time for GW to join the modern world.

And I never said that Americans are better because of higher wages, I said the US is GW's biggest market and has their biggest competitive scene. Ruling out that talent pool by offering a salary that is an absolute joke by non-UK standards is a serious mistake.


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 xttz wrote:
In a position like this, phrases like these are just code for "can you use Excel" and "can you work in an office environment without actively causing HR issues". You'll find the same lines used in job adverts for entry-level accounts clerks or purchasing dept roles across the country.

Correct, when talking about the kind of person GW expects to hire. I'm talking about the kind of person GW should hire if they want the job to be done properly. I'm well aware that GW will say "enthusiasm matters more than ability" and hire a yes man who will contribute little of value to quality game design but do a great job of telling management how right they are about everything.

It's quite likely that any data analysis done by this individual for things like evaluating tournament trends will only be slightly more complex than GW's current win rate metrics, and only used to make fancy graphs in WarCom articles with captions like:
"Our data shows that Redemptor dreadnoughts appeared in 55% of winning Space Marine tournament lists this month, therefore they get a +20pt increase"

And that is why GW continues to fail.

So how does someone in Nottingham find issues via token playtesting with someone in the US? This isn't appropriate for remote work in reality as you need a team in the same geographical location to conduct work with a physical product.

t the end of the day there is no need for global applicants, there's also nothing stopping global applicants applying and relocating. I kind of agree you are repeatedly pushing a "USA is obviously better, I'd be doing this job if it paid exactly what I want because I'm better than these scrubs" attitude. It might not be meant to come across that way, but it's how it's being received.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Gert wrote:
The largest geographical market doesn't matter when the headquarters isn't there and never will be.
GW is a British company and its not going to offer US salaries when the economic circumstances in the country the company is based in are heavily divergent.
Just because basic wages are higher doesn't mean Americans are better than Brits.

GW is a global company with US operations and viewing themselves as a "UK company" is silly in the age of easy remote work. It's not 1980 anymore and it's time for GW to join the modern world.

And I never said that Americans are better because of higher wages, I said the US is GW's biggest market and has their biggest competitive scene. Ruling out that talent pool by offering a salary that is an absolute joke by non-UK standards is a serious mistake.

Why? This isn't a massive company that need to recruit 100s of people to do a job with a very rare skill set. They need one person. I don't believe for a second that there's no-one in the UK labour pool capable of doing a brilliant job at this. What would be the benefit to them of hiring someone in the US when it would cost 3-4 times as much?

I don't disagree that if GW want to really improve their rules, they should be looking at offering more, maybe 40-50K for this position (not the 25-30 they probably are offering). But in the UK that'd easily hire someone very qualified for this sort of work. Why pay twice that (minimum, apparently) to hire someone from the US?

 Gert wrote:
GW is a company that sells internationally and operates a storage facility in the USA. It doesn't have offices in the USA or mainland Europe anymore so IMO that argument doesn't stand up.

I understand that GW is stuck in the 1980s and operates inefficiently. The reality is they're a global company whose primary market is the US, the UK is a tertiary market and their stubborn insistence on treating it as their primary focus is a clear loss of value. They should be bringing more stuff over to the US, not doubling down on an obsolete relic.

And I'm sorry but "GW should pay more so Americans can get UK based jobs" is just funny. I'll be over here enjoying my free health care and not having to pay someone to file my taxes.

No, "GW should pay US salaries and operate a US office so they can get the best people for the job". Smart companies make themselves competitive in the deepest talent pool, companies like GW limit themselves and then wonder why somehow they never manage to get things right.


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deano2099 wrote:
I don't believe for a second that there's no-one in the UK labour pool capable of doing a brilliant job at this.

Are you sure about this? Remember, "top 40k tournament player" is already setting a very small pool of candidates. If you follow competitive play you'll notice the same handful of people consistently at the top of the tournament standings and it's mostly because very few people are willing to spend the time and money to travel to multiple events, buy armies to keep up with the meta, spend time on practice games, etc. You're talking about a max of 100 people worldwide who meet that requirement, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's more like 10 people. And then from that incredibly small group you need to find someone with the math skills AND the PR skills to do the actual job properly. GW is looking for a unicorn candidate here and the best way to get that is to have a remote position offered anywhere in the world and a salary that is competitive in the market where GW's largest customer base lives.

except they are based in Nottingham, and because they are based in Nottingham thats where the UK games developers cluster

would be a huge upheaval relocating stateside, likely a lot of critical staff wouldn't move and they would cripple themselves in the process, incur significant costs and likely wreak the company

they are not large enough to also have a stateside office and presumably prefer to have all the development team in one place

tl;dr what the job would pay in the US doesn't matter because the job isn't in the US

GW got where they are because of the curious nature of the UK market for their products using a "model" that likely would not work stateside

leopard wrote:
they are not large enough to also have a stateside office and presumably prefer to have all the development team in one place

Offices are irrelevant in 2023, the vast majority of "office" jobs can be done remotely and the only value of the office is to commercial real estate landlords. GW is stuck in an obsolete business model here.

GW got where they are because of the curious nature of the UK market for their products using a "model" that likely would not work stateside

GW's financial numbers disagree. The US market is more than double the UK market in total revenue.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

leopard wrote:
they are not large enough to also have a stateside office and presumably prefer to have all the development team in one place

Offices are irrelevant in 2023, the vast majority of "office" jobs can be done remotely and the only value of the office is to commercial real estate landlords. GW is stuck in an obsolete business model here.

GW got where they are because of the curious nature of the UK market for their products using a "model" that likely would not work stateside

GW's financial numbers disagree. The US market is more than double the UK market in total revenue.

How are you playtesting remotely? You're ignoring that point conveniently.

Also, being quite frank and rude, nobody cares how much you love America, the vacancy is in the UK and would you believe it there's plenty of incompetent dimwits in the US as well they could hire just as easily.

ThePaintingOwl wrote:
And that is why GW continues to fail.

ThePaintingOwl wrote:

No, "GW should pay US salaries and operate a US office so they can get the best people for the job". Smart companies make themselves competitive in the deepest talent pool, companies like GW limit themselves and then wonder why somehow they never manage to get things right.

You'd need to employ a pretty non-standard metric of 'fail' and 'never get things right' to judge a company that is going from record profits to record profits year over year as 'failing' - one motivated by the wish to see them fail, in effect. Don't confuse hyper-critical forum people and the online complainosphere for the most important metric that matters at the end of the day: sales are the final arbiter of success or failure, and these seem largely fine to excellent. There are severe problems with thing in recent times, namely underserving of demand for boxed products, launch boxes etc. and the ongoing issues with scalpers and related activities, but then again these are only tangentially related to game design at best and might not be entirely undesired by GW corporate, as they stir the pot of FOMO-driven marketing. GW continues to rake in profits and expand without depending on outside funding, which is a big deal for a company that only deals in luxury hobby products in this economy.

Tsagualsa wrote:

ThePaintingOwl wrote:
And that is why GW continues to fail.

ThePaintingOwl wrote:

No, "GW should pay US salaries and operate a US office so they can get the best people for the job". Smart companies make themselves competitive in the deepest talent pool, companies like GW limit themselves and then wonder why somehow they never manage to get things right.

You'd need to employ a pretty non-standard metric of 'fail' and 'never get things right' to judge a company that is going from record profits to record profits year over year as 'failing' - one motivated by the wish to see them fail, in effect. Don't confuse hyper-critical forum people and the online complainosphere for the most important metric that matters at the end of the day: sales are the final arbiter of success or failure, and these seem largely fine to excellent. There are severe problems with thing in recent times, namely underserving of demand for boxed products, launch boxes etc. and the ongoing issues with scalpers and related activities, but then again these are only tangentially related to game design at best and might not be entirely undesired by GW corporate, as they stir the pot of FOMO-driven marketing. GW continues to rake in profits and expand without depending on outside funding, which is a big deal for a company that only deals in luxury hobby products in this economy.

I feel we're witnessing the Warhammer version of a MAGA hat currently.

Tsagualsa wrote:
You'd need to employ a pretty non-standard metric of 'fail' and 'never get things right' to judge a company that is going from record profits to record profits year over year as 'failing' - one motivated by the wish to see them fail, in effect.

GW is failing at game design, especially competitive game design as this thread is about, not at sales. They have very poor rules propped up by a critical mass effect established decades ago and strong lore/art components that drive sales despite the rule failures.

And "do they make a profit" is not the sole question that matters. If GW is making $500 million per year in profit it's a dismal failure if they could be making $1 billion instead.


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Dudeface wrote:
I feel we're witnessing the Warhammer version of a MAGA hat currently.

Cool, breaking the politeness and no politics rules in one post!

I feel what we're really witnessing is the emotional attachment UK players have towards GW as a "UK company", where the idea that the UK market is no longer of central importance feels bad and "their" company needs to stay at home where it belongs instead of pursuing maximum profit.


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Dudeface wrote:
How are you playtesting remotely? You're ignoring that point conveniently.

Virtual tabletops, and in-person playtesting groups with local players. Having GW employees spread out across different markets would improve playtesting as it would make it easier to get feedback from different local metas and different group personalities.

And remember, this is primarily a data analysis role, not a person who should be spending most of their time playing games.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

leopard wrote:
they are not large enough to also have a stateside office and presumably prefer to have all the development team in one place

Offices are irrelevant in 2023, the vast majority of "office" jobs can be done remotely and the only value of the office is to commercial real estate landlords. GW is stuck in an obsolete business model here.

GW got where they are because of the curious nature of the UK market for their products using a "model" that likely would not work stateside

GW's financial numbers disagree. The US market is more than double the UK market in total revenue.

This isn't an office job.

This is playtesting and whilst you can do that remotely its likely a LOT easier to do in person with tokens and a table and then advance up to actual models and physical terrain and features. You can't easily test your new line of sight rules on a computer simulation. Yes you can test some aspects of gameplay that way, but not the entire physical experience. For that you have ot shift into the physical real world.

I'm all for more remote working and remote options, but this is one of those cases where being there in person is likely far superior over working from home for many of the tasks. Or at the very least where you will need to turn up physically in person for several days of the week/month during phases of the testing process. So you could do a lot of the pencil pushing stat stuff at home and working remotely, but you'd still need to actually get to a table and physically test stuff.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
You'd need to employ a pretty non-standard metric of 'fail' and 'never get things right' to judge a company that is going from record profits to record profits year over year as 'failing' - one motivated by the wish to see them fail, in effect.

GW is failing at game design, especially competitive game design as this thread is about, not at sales. They have very poor rules propped up by a critical mass effect established decades ago and strong lore/art components that drive sales despite the rule failures.

And "do they make a profit" is not the sole question that matters. If GW is making $500 million per year in profit it's a dismal failure if they could be making $1 billion instead.


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Dudeface wrote:
I feel we're witnessing the Warhammer version of a MAGA hat currently.

Cool, breaking the politeness and no politics rules in one post!

I feel what we're really witnessing is the emotional attachment UK players have towards GW as a "UK company", where the idea that the UK market is no longer of central importance feels bad and "their" company needs to stay at home where it belongs instead of pursuing maximum profit.


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Dudeface wrote:
How are you playtesting remotely? You're ignoring that point conveniently.

Virtual tabletops, and in-person playtesting groups with local players. Having GW employees spread out across different markets would improve playtesting as it would make it easier to get feedback from different local metas and different group personalities.

And remember, this is primarily a data analysis role, not a person who should be spending most of their time playing games.

So you want them play testing unreleased rules and using insider information with Casual Dave down the FLGS in a professional capacity?

There is no emotional attachment to the UK for UK residents, most of us are pretty ready to self-depreciate about our home nation and know it's not perfect by any stretch. However your blind love for the US is ignoring the simple basic fact that they want 1 staff for a niche job at what is a niche company at the UK based headquarters and no amount of talking about US salaries is going to suddenly change that. You're also the one outright saying that for GW to continue to be successful they need to hire US staff and that US staffers would do better jobs. Remind me which of us is blinded by nationality at this point?

If the US was such a hotbed of amazingly skilled games developers, why would the largest and most successful wargames company not be or come form there? Or is it maybe that GW actually know the market and operate better than their competitors do currently, without needing an American office?

Dudeface wrote:
So you want them play testing unreleased rules and using insider information with Casual Dave down the FLGS in a professional capacity?

Why not? GW's obsessive secrecy about rules helps nobody and doing open beta testing would be even better.

Remind me which of us is blinded by nationality at this point?

It's not nationality, it's literally just market size. The UK market is less than half the size of the US market and GW should recruit where their deepest talent pool is. If you want the best talent are you more likely to find it in a pool of 500 people or in a pool of 1000 people?

If the US was such a hotbed of amazingly skilled games developers, why would the largest and most successful wargames company not be or come form there?

Because GW got a huge critical mass effect decades ago and dominates the niche market of miniatures games. But the US does have lots of game developers. Privateer Press is a US company. Fantasy Flight is a US company. WOTC (you may have heard of them) is a US company.

I'm not sure if citing Privateer Press in this thread is doing anything to help your argument


Yes the US is a bigger market; however if GW were really smart they'd move to China. Even bigger market there AND cheaper labour AND reduced health and safety!




Companies don't just relocate to the biggest market on a whim. GW has a talent pool; all their staffing; their factories; land; investments; structures; taxing system and everything in the UK. They don't gain anything spending millions moving to the USA; losing many key staff who won't move; having to rebuild in the USA when they can just put stock on a ship and send it over.


Gw did actually try and setup a US based site but apparently it failed due to issues with them not being about to source local key skilled workers for using their machines and maintaining them. They lost money having to ship machines back and forth from the USA and UK when things went wrong; or staff and such.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Because GW got a huge critical mass effect decades ago and dominates the niche market of miniatures games. But the US does have lots of game developers. Privateer Press is a US company. Fantasy Flight is a US company. WOTC (you may have heard of them) is a US company.

Ah yes - Just tanked in months what they built up over decades, licensed properties all the way down and can't keep a game alive for two editions, and the platonic ideal of predatory business practices that would put some drug dealers to shame. Clearly vastly superior to bumbling old Father Brown GW

 Overread wrote:
Yes the US is a bigger market; however if GW were really smart they'd move to China. Even bigger market there AND cheaper labour AND reduced health and safety!

Bigger population, not a bigger share of GW's market. For whatever reason GW hasn't established any real success in China. The US, on the other hand, is more than double the UK share of GW's revenue and has the largest competitive play scene.

Gw did actually try and setup a US based site but apparently it failed due to issues with them not being about to source local key skilled workers for using their machines and maintaining them. They lost money having to ship machines back and forth from the USA and UK when things went wrong; or staff and such.

We're talking about game development not manufacturing. Recruiting for game design jobs in the US doesn't mean they have to move their factory operations over here.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And "do they make a profit" is not the sole question that matters. If GW is making $500 million per year in profit it's a dismal failure if they could be making $1 billion instead.

Please show your working for this claim, to the nearest two decimal places.

Tsagualsa wrote:
Ah yes - Just tanked in months what they built up over decades, licensed properties all the way down and can't keep a game alive for two editions, and the platonic ideal of predatory business practices that would put some drug dealers to shame. Clearly vastly superior to bumbling old Father Brown GW

You can't have it both ways. If you're going to insist that GW should be credited as a success for their profit numbers despite their obvious competitive design failures then the same applies to WOTC, they're a success that blows away anything GW is doing no matter how predatory their business model is. They're making giant piles of money and they dominate both the RPG and CCG markets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 xttz wrote:
Please show your working for this claim, to the nearest two decimal places.

What claim? That making less profit than you could is a failure? That's like asking to prove that water is wet.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Please show your working for this claim, to the nearest two decimal places.

What claim? That making less profit than you could is a failure? That's like asking to prove that water is wet.

OK you're literally just trolling the thread at this point.

You claimed GW can make an extra $500m profit by improving game design. Prove it.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
Ah yes - Just tanked in months what they built up over decades, licensed properties all the way down and can't keep a game alive for two editions, and the platonic ideal of predatory business practices that would put some drug dealers to shame. Clearly vastly superior to bumbling old Father Brown GW

You can't have it both ways. If you're going to insist that GW should be credited as a success for their profit numbers despite their obvious competitive design failures then the same applies to WOTC, they're a success that blows away anything GW is doing no matter how predatory their business model is. They're making giant piles of money and they dominate both the RPG and CCG markets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 xttz wrote:
Please show your working for this claim, to the nearest two decimal places.

What claim? That making less profit than you could is a failure? That's like asking to prove that water is wet.

The claim that they'd earn more money hiring staff in the US.

 xttz wrote:
You claimed GW can make an extra $500m profit by improving game design. Prove it.

I claimed no such thing. Read the post again and pay attention to the use of the word "if".

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 xttz wrote:
You claimed GW can make an extra $500m profit by improving game design. Prove it.

I claimed no such thing. Read the post again and pay attention to the use of the word "if".

So we loop back around to a random campaign for them to move an office to the US despite there being no want or reason from the company to do so?

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Yes the US is a bigger market; however if GW were really smart they'd move to China. Even bigger market there AND cheaper labour AND reduced health and safety!

Bigger population, not a bigger share of GW's market. For whatever reason GW hasn't established any real success in China. The US, on the other hand, is more than double the UK share of GW's revenue and has the largest competitive play scene.

Gw did actually try and setup a US based site but apparently it failed due to issues with them not being about to source local key skilled workers for using their machines and maintaining them. They lost money having to ship machines back and forth from the USA and UK when things went wrong; or staff and such.

We're talking about game development not manufacturing. Recruiting for game design jobs in the US doesn't mean they have to move their factory operations over here.

GW's HQ is manufacture and design all under one roof. Everything is produced in Nottingham barring the cardboard and print content which is all overseas (because that's basically where most of the pulping and printing industry is). They also have a limited selection of plastics produced in china - mostly terrain and such. The bulk of their operation is nestled in Nottingham. Production, design, art, sculpting, game design, etc.... You don't just uproot all that and move it to the USA easily. Also its bad enough that GW compartmentalises teams as much as they do in Nottingham; having their setup spread out even more to other countries is just asking for even more internal troubles and problems; esp when many staff move between departments and such.

Dudeface wrote:
So we loop back around to a random campaign for them to move an office to the US despite there being no want or reason from the company to do so?

No, there is not no reason. Seriously, please try to keep things straight here. I believe that GW would be more successful by recruiting in their biggest market with their biggest competitive play scene, especially for a competitive play job. I did not put any number on that potential success, that was just xttz taking a comment out of context and misreading it.

The fact that "GW should recruit from their biggest market" somehow makes me equivalent in your eyes to a "MAGA hat" says a lot about the reasonableness of the discussion here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
GW's HQ is manufacture and design all under one roof.

But there's no need for it to be that way. The people working on tournament mission packs don't need to be in the same building as the machines making the plastic kits, the two jobs have nothing to do with each other. It's an especially obsolete business model when GW keeps having stock shortages because production can't keep up with demand. They clearly need to increase production capacity beyond their current single-site model.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
So we loop back around to a random campaign for them to move an office to the US despite there being no want or reason from the company to do so?

No, there is not no reason. Seriously, please try to keep things straight here. I believe that GW would be more successful by recruiting in their biggest market with their biggest competitive play scene, especially for a competitive play job. I did not put any number on that potential success, that was just xttz taking a comment out of context and misreading it.

The fact that "GW should recruit from their biggest market" somehow makes me equivalent in your eyes to a "MAGA hat" says a lot about the reasonableness of the discussion here.

But they're not, the thread is about an existing job post, centered in their head office. You've then filled it with talking about US game design salaries, how they should hire in the US, how the US is their biggest market and to a degree, how you think the US staff would do a better job, to the point of calling them a failure for not doing that.

You're ignoring the topic to bang on about the US.

Dudeface wrote:
But they're not, the thread is about an existing job post, centered in their head office. You've then filled it with talking about US game design salaries, how they should hire in the US, how the US is their biggest market and to a degree, how you think the US staff would do a better job, to the point of calling them a failure for not doing that.

You're ignoring the topic to bang on about the US.

Yes, because my whole point is that GW is doing it wrong with this job post. Pointing out that GW is in fact doing it in a way that I disagree with is stating the obvious.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
But they're not, the thread is about an existing job post, centered in their head office. You've then filled it with talking about US game design salaries, how they should hire in the US, how the US is their biggest market and to a degree, how you think the US staff would do a better job, to the point of calling them a failure for not doing that.

You're ignoring the topic to bang on about the US.

Yes, because my whole point is that GW is doing it wrong with this job post. Pointing out that GW is in fact doing it in a way that I disagree with is stating the obvious.

Then we're at a simple difference of both opinions and perspectives, to me I don't see trying to convince people they need to pay more purely to hire in a bigger country where they can't apply anything in practice with colleagues and instead are forced to share internal releases and document outside of hours with random playgroups in a store, as anything worth arguing for beyond a want for it to be "where I am".

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
GW's HQ is manufacture and design all under one roof.

But there's no need for it to be that way. The people working on tournament mission packs don't need to be in the same building as the machines making the plastic kits, the two jobs have nothing to do with each other. It's an especially obsolete business model when GW keeps having stock shortages because production can't keep up with demand. They clearly need to increase production capacity beyond their current single-site model.

GW only recently built a new factory at Nottingham to deal with expansion of demand. The only reason its failed is because we had a global pandemic which did 2 things

1) It drained the GW stock worldwide for several months before only allowing GW to return to production at a limited rate due to work-safe practice during Covid times. As a result GW went for at least a year or more with a huge backlog to restore and reduced output.

2) During lockdown GW's market underwent a massive growth because lots of people were stuck at home with nothing to do. Even though there's a cost-of-living crisis right now (which just seems to be the new fancy term for recession or whatever); GW's market grew and has remained larger.

This was all over a very short span of time. GW are now likely in a riding it out phase where they don't want to nor should invest heavily into additional manufacture because this massive market growth is likely NOT sustained. Many dipped in and will dip out over time. So GW needs to run for several years to see where the market is settling before choosing to invest millions into more production facilities and infrastructure.

As I noted they have in the past tried to setup a US factory and it failed; so GW is likely to retain their skilled staff they've got at one site and simply expand their exploring and warehousing (which they have also done) and just ship more product ot the USA

Dudeface wrote:
Then we're at a simple difference of both opinions and perspectives, to me I don't see trying to convince people they need to pay more purely to hire in a bigger country where they can't apply anything in practice with colleagues and instead are forced to share internal releases and document outside of hours with random playgroups in a store, as anything worth arguing for beyond a want for it to be "where I am".

Bigger country and bigger market = bigger applicant pool = better odds of finding the best candidate. It's that simple.

And it has nothing to do with "where I am". I wouldn't take the job even if GW offered it to me at a US-appropriate salary, for a variety of reasons. My opinions here are entirely about what I think is best for GW and best for 40k.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Are you sure about this? Remember, "top 40k tournament player" is already setting a very small pool of candidates. If you follow competitive play you'll notice the same handful of people consistently at the top of the tournament standings and it's mostly because very few people are willing to spend the time and money to travel to multiple events, buy armies to keep up with the meta, spend time on practice games, etc. You're talking about a max of 100 people worldwide who meet that requirement, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's more like 10 people. And then from that incredibly small group you need to find someone with the math skills AND the PR skills to do the actual job properly. GW is looking for a unicorn candidate here and the best way to get that is to have a remote position offered anywhere in the world and a salary that is competitive in the market where GW's largest customer base lives.

But "top 40k tournament player" isn't in the job description. "Winning record" doesn't mean winning entire tournaments, I don't think. I think it just means over a 50% win rate. Otherwise, as you say, the talent pool would be way too small. You wouldn't even put out a job advert, you'd just contact the 20 or so people who won big tournaments recently directly.

 Overread wrote:
As I noted they have in the past tried to setup a US factory and it failed; so GW is likely to retain their skilled staff they've got at one site and simply expand their exploring and warehousing (which they have also done) and just ship more product ot the USA

Again, we're talking about game design jobs not manufacturing. I agree that GW should expand their manufacturing in the UK, the only reason I mentioned the manufacturing expansion at all is that expanding to multiple UK sites (as they are apparently out of space at their current site) means giving up the "everyone under one roof" model anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

deano2099 wrote:
But "top 40k tournament player" isn't in the job description. "Winning record" doesn't mean winning entire tournaments, I don't think. I think it just means over a 50% win rate. Otherwise, as you say, the talent pool would be way too small. You wouldn't even put out a job advert, you'd just contact the 20 or so people who won big tournaments recently directly.

If a 51% win rate qualifies then that's an absurdly low standard by GW. You can get to a 50% win rate in tournaments purely by showing up with something resembling a meta list even if you don't really understand how the game works. Go 0-3 to start, go 3-0 on the beerhammer tables where nobody cares about winning. The person who would be qualified for this job may not have a bunch of first place finishes but they're at least consistently placing top 4/top 8 and in the conversation for winning the whole event.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


GW's financial numbers disagree. The US market is more than double the UK market in total revenue.

Isn't part of that because the prices are nearly twice as high?

And even if it's all true, you've established that to get staff equivalent to UK staff in the US, they'd have to spend 3x as much as no-one would get out of bed for less than six figures. So yeah, the market might be twice as big, but it costs you three times as much to operate there. Doesn't add up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


If a 51% win rate qualifies then that's an absurdly low standard by GW. You can get to a 50% win rate in tournaments purely by showing up with something resembling a meta list even if you don't really understand how the game works. Go 0-3 to start, go 3-0 on the beerhammer tables where nobody cares about winning. The person who would be qualified for this job may not have a bunch of first place finishes but they're at least consistently placing top 4/top 8 and in the conversation for winning the whole event.

Yup. You don't have to be brilliant at the game, just have a demonstratable understanding. The rest can be taught.

Again, you're not wrong that maybe what they should be doing is talking to all the top tournament players and seeing if any are interested. But that's not what they're looking for. No-one puts out an open job advert when they know that only 100 people max in the world are qualified to do it. Especially not when who those 100 people are is public knowledge.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Then we're at a simple difference of both opinions and perspectives, to me I don't see trying to convince people they need to pay more purely to hire in a bigger country where they can't apply anything in practice with colleagues and instead are forced to share internal releases and document outside of hours with random playgroups in a store, as anything worth arguing for beyond a want for it to be "where I am".

Bigger country and bigger market = bigger applicant pool = better odds of finding the best candidate. It's that simple.

But you don't need the best candidate. You just need someone good. The vast majority of companies would much rather hire someone that's 9/10 for the job at £40k than someone who is 10/10 but costs $100k+

While I absolutely do think GW should be paying more to get better game designers, there's no point in doubling their budget only to end up with someone at the exact same skill level, but in the US, when that same money could hire someone far more skilled and experienced in the UK.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Gert wrote:
The largest geographical market doesn't matter when the headquarters isn't there and never will be.
GW is a British company and its not going to offer US salaries when the economic circumstances in the country the company is based in are heavily divergent.
Just because basic wages are higher doesn't mean Americans are better than Brits.

GW is a global company with US operations and viewing themselves as a "UK company" is silly in the age of easy remote work. It's not 1980 anymore and it's time for GW to join the modern world.

And I never said that Americans are better because of higher wages, I said the US is GW's biggest market and has their biggest competitive scene. Ruling out that talent pool by offering a salary that is an absolute joke by non-UK standards is a serious mistake.

Typical American thinking money is the only thing that matters! /s

Few Western Europeans would accept the significant pay rise that comes with moving to America, because they'd have to deal with all the drawbacks.

If someone wants to live in Nottingham (which naturally would mainly be people who already live in the UK) then a reasonably competitive salary is based on that offered in similar roles in similar locations. Whether GW will offer that is a separate conversation but it's extremely naive to think that any global company would set compensation for such a role at a rate comparable with the highest paying country it has a presence in.

Dudeface wrote:

t the end of the day there is no need for global applicants, there's also nothing stopping global applicants applying and relocating. I kind of agree you are repeatedly pushing a "USA is obviously better, I'd be doing this job if it paid exactly what I want because I'm better than these scrubs" attitude. It might not be meant to come across that way, but it's how it's being received.

You forget how absurdly large the US is. Compared to the UK I would bet money they'd find a much better applicant in the states just because of population alone.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

t the end of the day there is no need for global applicants, there's also nothing stopping global applicants applying and relocating. I kind of agree you are repeatedly pushing a "USA is obviously better, I'd be doing this job if it paid exactly what I want because I'm better than these scrubs" attitude. It might not be meant to come across that way, but it's how it's being received.

You forget how absurdly large the US is. Compared to the UK I would bet money they'd find a much better applicant in the states just because of population alone.

Law of averages says yes probably, but even if they did, still need colleagues to work with, cost far more money, it's hard convincing someone to relocate 100+ miles in the UK, a problem exacerbates when that becomes a 3hr flight away or w/e. Moreover if you're going by sheer probability and population density, even without cost of the employee the US doesn't top that list.

Now if I thought the UK wasn't big on taxes I'd I'd consider moving. You don't get anything for free.

But if you don't work in the states you do get free healthcare either through the ACA or your state or both. Although everyone else is paying in for it so technically it's not free.

That said I'd be curious to know what I missing. I'd agree with anyone who criticisms the US tax system, it is definitely an industry *cough* racket. Still I do my own taxes and keep it simple.

I'm not underserved by a long shot and I'm just your average dude.

 Adeptekon wrote:
Now if I thought the UK wasn't big on taxes I'd I'd consider moving. You don't get anything for free.

But if you don't work in the states you do get free healthcare either through the ACA or your state or both. Although everyone else is paying in for it so technically it's not free.

That said I'd be curious to know what I missing. I'd agree with anyone who criticisms the US tax system, it is definitely an industry *cough* racket. Still I do my own taxes and keep it simple.

I'm not underserved by a long shot and I'm just your average dude.

If you're asking what the draw is in to the UK vs the US, that's both a political to degree and incredibly personally subjective topic not fit for in here tbh. Quick Google says taxation breaks even more or less, for the salaries discussed the tax is lower in the UK however and it's done for you. The US then adds the healthcare on top of the taxes.

Bigger pool of people means just that. More people. There are countries with even more people so should GW move there instead?

Silly joke I know dont answer it. What I want to say is GW was founded in the UK and established its operations HQ in the UK, even if they open a 2nd HQ in the US I would be inclined to say any capitalist company would prefer to hire their staff for their offices where they are cheaper and more convenient...

Why pay 100k In the US if I can pay 1k in another country?
Pool of people? LOLS the only difference is that they will take longer to find that 1k guy in another country taht will do the same as that 100k in the US but then again the recruiter companies on those countries will cost absolutely peanuts and in the end still a small percentage of this 100k.

GW wins.

in Game Design terms you can see that splitting the talent pool up rarely works well from the video games industry where different teams at different offices end up reinventing the wheel (and not infrequently making it hexagonal or even square) where they should be able to access the 'best' tech for cameras, animations, enemy intelligence etc

its also why a big company buying a sucessful games developer rarely works well (for long) as the big companies assets are spread out over the globe and don't talk/interact with each other enough. And where it is sucessful it's usually beause the individual design studios end up being run almost totally independantly

I could see a GW USA working, but not if it played in the 40K/AoS sand box (it's bad enough when codex design teams in the same building in Nottingham don't talk to one another, add in 1000s of miles, long airflights, and different time zones and it would end up much, much worse), now if the ran with a unique IP and game then it might work

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

t the end of the day there is no need for global applicants, there's also nothing stopping global applicants applying and relocating. I kind of agree you are repeatedly pushing a "USA is obviously better, I'd be doing this job if it paid exactly what I want because I'm better than these scrubs" attitude. It might not be meant to come across that way, but it's how it's being received.

You forget how absurdly large the US is. Compared to the UK I would bet money they'd find a much better applicant in the states just because of population alone.

Law of averages says yes probably, but even if they did, still need colleagues to work with, cost far more money, it's hard convincing someone to relocate 100+ miles in the UK, a problem exacerbates when that becomes a 3hr flight away or w/e. Moreover if you're going by sheer probability and population density, even without cost of the employee the US doesn't top that list.

Relocation is the fault of GW here. In the age if the internet, remote work is great, and would actually help GW make a better game in this case since the theoretical rules writer wouldn't have to interact with the old guard that keeps making gak decisions with their rules.

That's not what will happen though because GW wants a yesman.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
Ah yes - Just tanked in months what they built up over decades, licensed properties all the way down and can't keep a game alive for two editions, and the platonic ideal of predatory business practices that would put some drug dealers to shame. Clearly vastly superior to bumbling old Father Brown GW

You can't have it both ways. If you're going to insist that GW should be credited as a success for their profit numbers despite their obvious competitive design failures then the same applies to WOTC, they're a success that blows away anything GW is doing no matter how predatory their business model is. They're making giant piles of money and they dominate both the RPG and CCG markets.

WotC are a subsidiary of the second largest toy company in the world. You don't get to where Hasbro is by not knowing how to milk a market.

And if you think GW players are whiny, don't get involved with Magic or Hasbro fandoms.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Then we're at a simple difference of both opinions and perspectives, to me I don't see trying to convince people they need to pay more purely to hire in a bigger country where they can't apply anything in practice with colleagues and instead are forced to share internal releases and document outside of hours with random playgroups in a store, as anything worth arguing for beyond a want for it to be "where I am".

Bigger country and bigger market = bigger applicant pool = better odds of finding the best candidate. It's that simple.

And it has nothing to do with "where I am". I wouldn't take the job even if GW offered it to me at a US-appropriate salary, for a variety of reasons. My opinions here are entirely about what I think is best for GW and best for 40k.

You think uk has shortage of hobbyists who are happy to be yes-man for sales department for cheap wage?-)

Lol.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Relocation is the fault of GW here. In the age if the internet, remote work is great, and would actually help GW make a better game in this case since the theoretical rules writer wouldn't have to interact with the old guard that keeps making gak decisions with their rules.

That's not what will happen though because GW wants a yesman.

Remote work is only good if everyone is connected at every point throughout the work cycle. It's all well and good for people within the same timezone to be working on the same project but even then that isn't always a guarantee. I'm currently working with someone who works from home and the extra levels of communication make doing our collective work that little bit harder. They miss the impromptu catch-ups and check-ins with senior team members and lose out on instant access to support from people who know systems or procedures better.
It's great that the flexibility is there for them and I wouldn't take that away but when they've missed out on the coordination between the in-office team members who don't have time to go on a call or message every little change, it can make it difficult.
Now add in the time difference between the USA and UK. Even on the east coast, you're looking at a 5-hour difference where by the time the US-based employee starts work, the UK employees are already nearly finished for the day. If either side needs to check in or coordinate they have roughly a 3-4 hour window and that's it because nobody is going to communicate about work projects after they finish work. Even if the person is working from home, if they need to come into the office that's something that is relatively feasible for a UK resident if slightly inconvenient in some cases, something a US-based employee needs a passport and a plane journey to do.

Magic's fandom is actually quite lovely, in my experience as a Magic designer of 12 years. Obviously there's some complaining on the internet, but my personal interactions with fans at events have been almost universally positive.

Some of the suggestions in this thread are quite absurd. GW obviously shouldn't completely reorganize their business and open a US design studio to improve competitive play by N%.

Also, playtesting tabletop games remotely sucks. Playtesting Magic remotely during the pandemic was a huge pain, and I imagine that Warhammer would be much more difficult. Remote playtesting takes considerably more effort for inferior results. And ultimately, you want your playtesting conditions to resemble the actual conditions your customers will be operating under for the best fidelity.

The job description for this could easily be for what amounts to an entry-level game design position, to my eye. You do take a pay cut working on games, especially tabletop games, compared to some other industries that utilize similar skillsets. People doing what they love for somewhat less money aren't idiots.

I love when keyboard warriors turn into keyboard CEOs. GW are doing ok without the advice of experts on here.

One thing I think those suggesting that GW pay ludicrous six figure salary to an entry level job with no professional qualifications required, is that this is a design job is for a branch of the company that isn’t that big a deal to them.

As much as it irks some people, the tournament scene isn’t that important to gw as it doesn’t make them that much money. I’m sure if for a split second the thought the guy doing match play scenarios was going to increase profits by 20% they would pay them a lot. But it isn’t happening.

Watch the video posted earlier, it’s a real eye opener to the philosophy of gw. Thick end of the trumpet, that’s not die hard tournie players, or me a gnarled veteran who enjoys trying new painting techniques. It’s Timmy and his mum.

 Pariah Press wrote:
Magic's fandom is actually quite lovely, in my experience as a Magic designer of 12 years. Obviously there's some complaining on the internet, but my personal interactions with fans at events have been almost universally positive.

I mean, this is true of 40K players, too. Of course I'm talking about online discourse.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

t the end of the day there is no need for global applicants, there's also nothing stopping global applicants applying and relocating. I kind of agree you are repeatedly pushing a "USA is obviously better, I'd be doing this job if it paid exactly what I want because I'm better than these scrubs" attitude. It might not be meant to come across that way, but it's how it's being received.

You forget how absurdly large the US is. Compared to the UK I would bet money they'd find a much better applicant in the states just because of population alone.

Law of averages says yes probably, but even if they did, still need colleagues to work with, cost far more money, it's hard convincing someone to relocate 100+ miles in the UK, a problem exacerbates when that becomes a 3hr flight away or w/e. Moreover if you're going by sheer probability and population density, even without cost of the employee the US doesn't top that list.

Relocation is the fault of GW here. In the age if the internet, remote work is great, and would actually help GW make a better game in this case since the theoretical rules writer wouldn't have to interact with the old guard that keeps making gak decisions with their rules.

That's not what will happen though because GW wants a yesman.

So to clarify, if they work on their own at home without talking to the rest of the team they'll improve the game? That's your sales pitch? For them spending more money on someone to be totally isolated and unsupervised?

Dudeface wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:
Now if I thought the UK wasn't big on taxes I'd I'd consider moving. You don't get anything for free.

But if you don't work in the states you do get free healthcare either through the ACA or your state or both. Although everyone else is paying in for it so technically it's not free.

That said I'd be curious to know what I missing. I'd agree with anyone who criticisms the US tax system, it is definitely an industry *cough* racket. Still I do my own taxes and keep it simple.

I'm not underserved by a long shot and I'm just your average dude.

If you're asking what the draw is in to the UK vs the US, that's both a political to degree and incredibly personally subjective topic not fit for in here tbh. Quick Google says taxation breaks even more or less, for the salaries discussed the tax is lower in the UK however and it's done for you. The US then adds the healthcare on top of the taxes.

I do appreciate those who have expressed concerns about my quality of life / living standards. Just sayin' I'm doin' ok y'all.

Pretty dire way of running a game making business. After 10 editions you finally advertise for someone to fix the broken mess of a game.

What's more sad is that we all keep buying the editions they spew out.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
Pretty dire way of running a game making business. After 10 editions you finally advertise for someone to fix the broken mess of a game.

What's more sad is that we all keep buying the editions they spew out.

Do you honestly think they don't employ any game developers currently?

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

t the end of the day there is no need for global applicants, there's also nothing stopping global applicants applying and relocating. I kind of agree you are repeatedly pushing a "USA is obviously better, I'd be doing this job if it paid exactly what I want because I'm better than these scrubs" attitude. It might not be meant to come across that way, but it's how it's being received.

You forget how absurdly large the US is. Compared to the UK I would bet money they'd find a much better applicant in the states just because of population alone.

Law of averages says yes probably, but even if they did, still need colleagues to work with, cost far more money, it's hard convincing someone to relocate 100+ miles in the UK, a problem exacerbates when that becomes a 3hr flight away or w/e. Moreover if you're going by sheer probability and population density, even without cost of the employee the US doesn't top that list.

Relocation is the fault of GW here. In the age if the internet, remote work is great, and would actually help GW make a better game in this case since the theoretical rules writer wouldn't have to interact with the old guard that keeps making gak decisions with their rules.

That's not what will happen though because GW wants a yesman.

So to clarify, if they work on their own at home without talking to the rest of the team they'll improve the game? That's your sales pitch? For them spending more money on someone to be totally isolated and unsupervised?

Look at what supervision with Cruddace and his cronies did with 10th. That alone should be your sales pitch to get someone remote that doesn't want the game to suck.

American exceptionalism at its finest folks.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Look at what supervision with Cruddace and his cronies did with 10th. That alone should be your sales pitch to get someone remote that doesn't want the game to suck.

Nah, I'm good thanks, I don't want a game written by someone sat in a room on their own with literally 0 playtesting but against themselves and the pleasure of paying more to cover overheads for it.

Dudeface wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
Pretty dire way of running a game making business. After 10 editions you finally advertise for someone to fix the broken mess of a game.

What's more sad is that we all keep buying the editions they spew out.

Do you honestly think they don't employ any game developers currently?

When the first tournament played after release showed how broken it was... then, mmm, I do wonder.

It certainly hasn't been playtested and having played 40k since the late 90's, I feel the game is in a dire position. Polished looking yes, but bad from a gaming point of view.

Wasn't v8 running on those initial Index books considered a pretty tight version prior to codex creep? Version 10 should currently be in the exact same position if it had been developed and playtested well.

 Gert wrote:
American exceptionalism at its finest folks.

Once again, you aren't thinking about how populated the states is. If GW didn't have the stipulations in place just so they could hire a yesman, population alone means you'd find a much better candidate than someone in England.

Look at it this way. England's population is 56mill. The state of California alone is 39mill.
If a few dudes in a basement can complete a more cohesive ruleset with One Page Rules (and I'm certain they're American but I could be wrong), it shows how little GW cares about looking for a candidate that's actually right for the job.