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To counter that, I have known grown-up wargamers of long experience who are unable to recognise 'broken' or ineffective units and tactics, no matter how much they played.

I don't mean to prove you wrong -- we are both right. It is the ratio of kids playing 40K between the junior grognards and the Wham! Blam! crowd that counts.

I don't think the distinction is so clear on kids vs. adults. The focus is just definitely on the casual player - be it a casual newbie or a casual veteran. It only breaks down when you start taking the game (and winning) more seriously than the designers do.

Regwon wrote:JohnHwangDD hit the nail on the head.

GW is a minatures company first. Everything else (including rules) is secondary.

This is also why so much emphisis is placed on the "hobby" as a whole (the terrain, the painting, the conversions) rather than the game itself. They make more money from selling minatures than they do rules so thats where their focus is.

Yep, Gw is a model company.. they make rules to help sell those models, but at the end of the day, it's the models that are the driving force, not the rules. You buy one book, and usually one codex every 4-6 years.. you buy models all the time. rules and codex total cost, let's say 75 dollars every 4-6 years. models, let's say you aren't a big spender and manage 35 dollars every 3 months.. that's 560 dollars every 4 years.. If you spend more, well there you go.. 75 dollars vs 560 dollars.. see where the profit is?

Agree, Moz.

And besides, it's not that many of us can't play cutthroat games of 40k, it's more that we choose not to.

In the long run - good game rules do count. Models are perhaps more important. But if a company comes up with models of an equal quality - if their game rules are better they will get more players.
It's not impossible that another company with good miniatures will come along

However, it's GW sheer size which ensures it's reign over Hobby Gaming.

As I mentioned about PP, I don't know of any local players, so that has disinclined me more than anything pursuing it further than I did (bought Prime and the first expansion, didn't get a chance to really get into it, so sold it all)

I don't think size ensures anything. There are other companies with resources to challenge GW if they decide to do so.
If with more time more people have more disposable income, so the wargames market seems lucrative

It's still a proliferation of your product thats the problem though.

Sure, Hasbro etc could release a 40k or Fantasy type game, but that takes a constant investment, to continue churning out rules and models.

GW have an infrastructure few companies have, namely their chain of shops. Thats quite a hurdle to overcome for a company looking to compete directly.

Hasbro has a game - it's called Magic the Gathering, and it's doing quite well. Hasbro also has D&D, which does pretty good. And they've got the D&D CMG. All told, Hasbro's hands are quite full, I think.

As an addendum to my above post...

In order to successfully launch a new game, you also need players interest. Now PP are up and running fully (in that they have variety kind of rivalling GW, and a decent player base, in the US at least) they have soaked up a fair proportion of former GW Gamers who had moved on for whatever reason.

I mean, look at SST. Lauded when it came out by some as the death of 40k, it's owning company has wound up it's entire minatures wing. By all accounts it had a good rules set. BUT, a lot of the models were slightly shonky, so perhaps that buried them more than anything. Who can tell?

GW is the mighty shark swimming in an ocean full of jellyfish. It's the biggest monster around, but it is still only a fraction of the total biomass.

It is impossible to believe GW's claim to make up 95% of the entire hobby gaming market. There are far too many small companies making rules, figures and accessories of all types.

Wasn't their claim, IIRC, but an independant assesment of some kind. Might be wrong though so don't quote me on that.

They certainly have the biggest share, something around 65% I'd wager. The rest is then split down amongst a LOT of manufacturers.

It was a claim made in their annual report, taken from an independant assessment.

Even a figure of 65% is highly suspect. If I hadn't been drinking, I would dig up the thread where I did the sums about it.

Yes, the rest is split down amongst a lot of manufacturers. There are many small wargame companies around.

I'm sure 65% was quoted to me before.

Certainly, when Rackham hit the skids (yeah..not a great example I know, given they'd hit the skids) their turnover was less than GW's profit, and they were often (but not necessarily accurately) cited as being the next biggest.

Hard to tell about PP though, since they aren't publically listed.

The rules are fine for playing games outside of tournaments. It's when you get into tournament games that you get rules lawyers and people trying to argue small points that were probably over-looked when the rules were made. If a rule doesn't adequately cover a situation, outside of a tourney it's usually very simple to determine what the most sensible outcome should be. When you get into tourneys however, people don't care about what is the most sensible, only what benefits them. The rules weren't made for this type of gaming. A game like warhammer simply has too many different situations that can arise to cover every possible thing in the rules. Playing warhammer absolutely competitively, is like trying to dribble a football. It's simply not what it was meant for. The rules fail when people care more about winning than playing the game.

Kilkrazy wrote:To counter that, I have known grown-up wargamers of long experience who are unable to recognise 'broken' or ineffective units and tactics, no matter how much they played.

I don't mean to prove you wrong -- we are both right. It is the ratio of kids playing 40K between the junior grognards and the Wham! Blam! crowd that counts.

It's not that. I just think that there's more "junior grognards" as you call it than people believe. They want to make good lists, they want to win with them, they care about balance. It's just hidden in all the "LOL I TOTALLY BLEW UP YOUR TANK!" and "Your orks are broken (but I don't know why)!" cries.