Why is the balance changes in chapter approved not free?

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**Raichase**

We've already seen point tweaks in the Errata/FAQ documents. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the sky does indeed not fall, and if the points changes in Chapter Approved are released in the next updated FAQ/Errata.

**Blackie**

BaconCatBug wrote:
Panzergraf wrote:
You're in a restaurant, enjoying your $50 soup, when the waiter comes out.
"I'm terribly sorry sir, but there's a dead rat in your soup. Don't worry though, we will remove it for only $25."
Totally not the same situation. Food = Pointless plastic models.

If you don't like it, don't buy it.

I think the comparison is fair. Going to the restaurant is not surviving by eating food, is something "pointless" just like playing with plastic toys. Going to the restaurant doesn't mean feeding, it's just another way to have fun.

**Infantryman**

So, realtalk - how do I handle players who haven't started using the CA values?

Like, if I show up to the FLGS and play a 2k point game and see his list uses pre-CA points values. There's going to be a lag time before people get on board, so how have you all dealt with it?

M.

**GI_Redshirt**

Infantryman wrote:
So, realtalk - how do I handle players who haven't started using the CA values?

Like, if I show up to the FLGS and play a 2k point game and see his list uses pre-CA points values. There's going to be a lag time before people get on board, so how have you all dealt with it?

M.

The book has not released yet. Everything we have is leaks and people who have gotten the book early telling us things. You can't really have the expectation that everyone has seen the leaks or wishes to use them. Once the book releases on Saturday, yeah the expectation is that you will use the new points costs and rules and whatnot. But until then, you can't really tell people "Use these rules that haven't come out yet cause I saw blurry pictures of them online, you can totally trust me on them!"

As for how to deal with it, well deal with it the same way you deal with literally every issue/problem in this hobby. Talking. Discuss before the game whether you guys will use CA before it releases or not. It takes all of 30 seconds to say "Hey, do you wanna use the new CA points and rules even though we don't have the book yet?" If your opponent says yes, all good. But if they say no, you can't really be upset that they don't wanna use rules that neither of you actually have on hand.

**gendoikari87**

Panzergraf wrote:
The balance changes are a patch, not an expansion. A codex would be an expansion. Rules for new models would be like a DLC.

I get that a printed book has to cost some money, but the balance changes should be available for free as a PDF.

This is all due to GW seeing themselves as Inelastic VS elastic. it's a problem that goes way back. basically if GW sees an opportunity to sell gak, they will.

**argonak**

Raichase wrote:
We've already seen point tweaks in the Errata/FAQ documents. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the sky does indeed not fall, and if the points changes in Chapter Approved are released in the next updated FAQ/Errata.

Yeah. Everyone seems to be overreacting a bit. The book isn't even out yet. I expect we'll just get another official errata.

**Zid**

Zingraff wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
Pretty much every other game does their errata/points updates as a free download. That's generally an industry standard. GW is the lone outlier that I'm aware of in this respect.

What he said.

Having a printed, paper version is nice, and made sense in the 1990's, but today it should have been available as free PDF, with the book as a potential alternative containing additional content like the new scenarios. For instance, does this new supplement mean they will no longer update their FAQs and erratas?

Zid wrote:

Bingo.

A lot of people are comparing this to video games were they roll out patches for free to fix game breaking bugs. However, remember that millions of people bought these games, and the companies rely on people to continue playing and buying things such as DLC to increase the life and profitability of a game. Many people beat a game in a week, get rid of it, and move on.

With 40k, many people have invested hundreds (or thousands) into this game. While logically they COULD roll out everything in periodic free updates, which is sounds like they will do, Chapter Approved can be seen more as an "expansion + patch" because it does give us a lot of extra content on top of fixes to armies. As well, you need to realize from a business standpoint, printing a book with newly developed content needs to cost something. Your buying a physical product. I'm sure people would complain less if there was a $5 digital only copy you could get through Amazon, but I don't mind paying a little. Keeps GW running, and keeps your FLGS in business.

But it doesn't need to be a physical product, that's just a decision they've made.

Everyone else in the boardgame and miniature business do these sort of things as free downloads. Like FFG, that's one of the reasons they're on such good terms with their fan-base. You can't really make the comparison to the digital games developers, and it ought to be sufficient that everyone else in the "physical" game industry do these things regularly and for free. I think we all agree a new book with extra scenarios should cost money, but we would have liked the CA-part to be stand-alone.

I can see your point. The thing here is that boardgames (I have a huge collection myself and follow them closely) are stand-alone, one of products that people buy and play. 40k your always adding more and more, books, models, whatever. This could be a test to see how well it goes over, because honestly people can just take a marker to their codex with the leaks and make manual changes. It will be interesting.

**Infantryman**

GI_Redshirt wrote:

The book has not released yet. Everything we have is leaks and people who have gotten the book early telling us things. You can't really have the expectation that everyone has seen the leaks or wishes to use them. Once the book releases on Saturday, yeah the expectation is that you will use the new points costs and rules and whatnot. But until then, you can't really tell people "Use these rules that haven't come out yet cause I saw blurry pictures of them online, you can totally trust me on them!"

...you don't say?

GI_Redshirt wrote:

As for how to deal with it, well deal with it the same way you deal with literally every issue/problem in this hobby. Talking. Discuss before the game whether you guys will use CA before it releases or not. It takes all of 30 seconds to say "Hey, do you wanna use the new CA points and rules even though we don't have the book yet?" If your opponent says yes, all good. But if they say no, you can't really be upset that they don't wanna use rules that neither of you actually have on hand.

To which they say no, at which point I say "Hold on, let me go redo my list."?

I suppose I should start doing lists on both for utility.

M.

**Kaiyanwang**

sennacherib wrote:
Um. Because GW isn’t a charity.

I am not a charity, either.
I am not going to pay for non-functional rules, and then pay again for a sloppy errata.

**Halfpast_Yellow**

Kaiyanwang wrote:
sennacherib wrote:
Um. Because GW isn’t a charity.

I am not a charity, either.
I am not going to pay for non-functional rules, and then pay again for a sloppy errata.

'Non-functional'

So don't. Such entitlement complexes in this thread.

**Kaiyanwang**

Halfpast_Yellow wrote:
Kaiyanwang wrote:
sennacherib wrote:
Um. Because GW isn’t a charity.

I am not a charity, either.
I am not going to pay for non-functional rules, and then pay again for a sloppy errata.

'Non-functional'

So don't. Such entitlement complexes in this thread.

The point is that that is a shallow defence: other companies do not charge for errata because they recognize that is their duty to fix their shortcomings and do not charge the customer fo those.
The "battered wife" GW customer considers requiring such normal thing "entitlement".

**Unit1126PLL**

No, I don't think he's saying "you're entitled for not tolerating it."

I think he's saying "Don't buy it if you don't want to; GW owes you nothing and you owe GW nothing."

**Rolsheen**

What a bunch of self indulgent whiners. If you don't want to buy it then don't, just don't complain when your opponent uses the new points and can get more stuff in their list. All these people complaining about the number of books they need to carry, grow up. If you don't like the new 40k then quit and don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out

**Fafnir**

Rolsheen wrote:
What a bunch of self indulgent whiners. If you don't want to buy it then don't, just don't complain when your opponent uses the new points and can get more stuff in their list. All these people complaining about the number of books they need to carry, grow up. If you don't like the new 40k then quit and don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out

...what if the new point values make you pay more? Can you just ignore that then too? Are you going to be okay going against someone with a list that has different point values from yours if it doesn't work in your favour?

See, my problem is that I like the new 40k. 8th edition is a massive improvement to the core gameplay that has been seriously bogged down for a very long time. But handling content like this is a poor policy that infringes on the enjoyment I, and others, get out of it.

**Chikout**

Gw's digital stuff does not sell well. A lot of the playerbase tend to be quite old-school and prefer physical versions of this kind of thing. That costs money.
It is is interesting that for AoS there is both the physical book and warscroll builder which is digital and free. I hope that when the rumoured 40k app is released, it will also be free. That would solve a lot of people's problems.

**Crimson Devil**

Kaiyanwang wrote:
Halfpast_Yellow wrote:
Kaiyanwang wrote:
sennacherib wrote:
Um. Because GW isn’t a charity.

I am not a charity, either.
I am not going to pay for non-functional rules, and then pay again for a sloppy errata.

'Non-functional'

So don't. Such entitlement complexes in this thread.

The point is that that is a shallow defence: other companies do not charge for errata because they recognize that is their duty to fix their shortcomings and do not charge the customer fo those.
The "battered wife" GW customer considers requiring such normal thing "entitlement".

As apposed to what you're doing? Stalking you Ex.

**Infantryman**

Chikout wrote:
Gw's digital stuff does not sell well. A lot of the playerbase tend to be quite old-school and prefer physical versions of this kind of thing. That costs money.
It is is interesting that for AoS there is both the physical book and warscroll builder which is digital and free. I hope that when the rumoured 40k app is released, it will also be free. That would solve a lot of people's problems.

It would be nice if PDFs could be auto-updated with changes. I'm doing it manually, but I'm invariably going to miss stuff.

M.

**tneva82**

Rolsheen wrote:
What a bunch of self indulgent whiners. If you don't want to buy it then don't, just don't complain when your opponent uses the new points and can get more stuff in their list. All these people complaining about the number of books they need to carry, grow up. If you don't like the new 40k then quit and don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out

Or gets less. You do know price changes aren't all price drops? Significant amount of them are price hikes. Many in realms of 3 digit %'s.

I mean we have stuff that cost 600 pts(expensive but affordable in 2k list) suddenly being 1800 or basically entire army. You okay opponent bringing that 600 pts version?-)

**WobblyGoblin**

The question I have is "how sustainable is the rules model they have set out"? Right now you might need 4 books to carry around with your army - codex, index (for options not in the codex), forgeworld index and the chapter approved. Points will be spread across these books. What happens when the 2nd and 3rd CA books come? You'll potentially need those as well. Soon enough everyone will be carrying around a small library!

Sure, you can photocopy pages or just leave the books behind and try an remember rules but that causes its own problems and doesn't give the opponent an opportunity to look things up.

They must surely be planning an app for army building that also holds the datacards. I can imagine them charging a subscription for it but it would save carrying a backpack of books each time!...

**tneva82**

WobblyGoblin wrote:
Sure, you can photocopy pages or just leave the books behind and try an remember rules but that causes its own problems and doesn't give the opponent an opportunity to look things up.

Yeah sorry no. If you use some rule during game opponent MUST be able to see the rules in question on demand and onus for providing that is on the player who uses it, not the opponent. Thus if you use something but don't have rules with you nope. Can't be expected to actually be able to use it.

If it's only one or two page then yeah photocopy it though that might not fly well around in a shop unless you play with people who KNOWS you have the book...

**Oldboy666**

Now with automatic updates, online content, ebooks... it's just strange that an update of a product someone already bought comes in a different book and at a price.
May be for younger players it would be better to pay a 9.99 monthly membership to GW and get all your faction new stuff and updates.

"Entitlement" is something else. I think It's not so unreasonable, having bought not so long ago all the ruleset for my game and my faction, to be able to play them.
Constant updates and feedback with the players are great, but they need an equally state of the art selling strategy.
The consequence could be that a lot of people will be pushed to "russian" ways to get content...

That said, .... I'll buy the CA

**Alex Kolodotschko**

Battlefront are a good company.
They would send my store full colour pages of errata and stickers to go over occasional typos to distribute to my players with every update. This was great for business both ways as they would come from far and wide to the store to spend money on other things whilst getting their free updates.

With a new edition, you walked into a store with your old hardback copy of FOW they would put a cool veteran sticker inside it, and a nice full colour A5 softback for free.
Everyone who got this treatment very much appreciated it and felt reinvigorated to keep playing and most importantly, paying.
Most would buy the new hardback soon after for missions, art, fluff etc and all would keep adding to their model collections.
It can and should be done by all companies imo as that bon ami is invaluable.

**gendoikari87**

Watching people complain about capitalists trying to make a buck was entertaining for a while but it's getting old now.

GW is company. you don't have to buy from them. They have Zero obligation to cater to your demands so long as people are buying the product. they don't care about you, by law they care only about making money. And if shady crap like chapter approves makes more money than releasing the rules for free, then you HAVE to live with that decision, as it is theirs to make not yours. if you have such a problem with it, vote with your dollars, and don't buy.

This is how capitalism works. If you don't like it, there's a few alternatives.

**tneva82**

But question is is this best way to get money. I know they lost me as a customer. Was about to buy more stuff for IG and later for orks plus CA. Instead no new models and I can just update price of models from the leaked pictures and skip the dumpfest of CA.

But why reward them for the blatant money grabbing that CA does with it's clear money driven decision to move players from FW resin to more profitable plastic...Nope. Not going to follow that.

**Ix_Tab**

gendoikari87 wrote:
Watching people complain about capitalists trying to make a buck was entertaining for a while but it's getting old now.

GW is company. you don't have to buy from them. They have Zero obligation to cater to your demands so long as people are buying the product. they don't care about you, by law they care only about making money. And if shady crap like chapter approves makes more money than releasing the rules for free, then you HAVE to live with that decision, as it is theirs to make not yours. if you have such a problem with it, vote with your dollars, and don't buy.

This is how capitalism works. If you don't like it, there's a few alternatives.

This is how forums with relatively free speech work, if you don't like it......

I agree there are a lot of posts with dubious validity in this thread. Is your description "how capitalism works"? Seems to me there are many shades of "capitalism" at work in the world. Even GW appear to be influenced in some small way by community feedback these days, other companies take a very responsive attitude and have a genuine ongoing "conversation" with their customers. The way to maximise profit is not clearly mapped, you may even find decisions made which are informed by moral codes, wow!

**Hollow**

I'm getting really tired of reading about the 'phantom internet problem' of having to 'carry a library' around in order to play an army. This is such a BS non-issue, which literally never happens IRL.

Everyone I have seen (including myself) carries around a maximum of one book. Their codex or index (I have digital copies so I don't carry around any physical books, as do a significant percentage of people I see playing)

Nobody is carrying in a Rulebook, there is maybe one or two about for use at the store, or games club if absolutely necessary (which is never given the simplicity of the rules and the fact that most people aren't rules-lawyering A-holes like they are online)

The odd unit here and there not in a codex or index or something else? Photocopy of their rules or a small note of their rules made. That's it.

Can this "OMG I need to carry around the Rulebook, Codex, Index and CA just to play my army" stop please?

**Ruin**

Hollow wrote:
I'm getting really tired of reading about the 'phantom internet problem' of having to 'carry a library' around in order to play an army. This is such a BS non-issue, which literally never happens IRL.

Everyone I have seen (including myself) carries around a maximum of one book. Their codex or index (I have digital copies so I don't carry around any physical books, as do a significant percentage of people I see playing)

Nobody is carrying in a Rulebook, there is maybe one or two about for use at the store, or games club if absolutely necessary (which is never given the simplicity of the rules and the fact that most people aren't rules-lawyering A-holes like they are online)

The odd unit here and there not in a codex or index or something else? Photocopy of their rules or a small note of their rules made. That's it.

Can this "OMG I need to carry around the Rulebook, Codex, Index and CA just to play my army" stop please?

My anecdotal evidence is different to your anecdotal evidence. You're wrong. Fight me.

**AaronWilson**

To be fair, at the moment for a 40k game I bring Chaos Codex, Datacards, Rulebook & Chaos FAQ. Now I'll bring along Chapter Approved, I could be 1 in a 1000 but I like to have the resources on me if I did happen to need one.

**Kanluwen**

Chikout wrote:
Gw's digital stuff does not sell well. A lot of the playerbase tend to be quite old-school and prefer physical versions of this kind of thing. That costs money.
It is is interesting that for AoS there is both the physical book and warscroll builder which is digital and free. I hope that when the rumoured 40k app is released, it will also be free. That would solve a lot of people's problems.

It's worth mentioning that there is a significant difference between the physical book, the Age of Sigmar app, and the Warscroll Builder.
Warscroll Builder lets you create something like this:

Allegiance: Khorne

Leaders
Aspiring Deathbringer with Goreaxe and Skullhammer (100)
- General
- Trait: Arch-slaughterer
- Artefact: The Blood-forged Armour

Battleline
5 x Blood Warriors (100)
- Goreaxe & Gorefist
- 2x Goreglaives
40 x Bloodreavers (240)
- Meatripper Axes

Reinforcement Points (0)

Total: 440 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400

It's a quick, easy way to build a list. It gives you zero reference material to work from. You still need the books for the Artefacts and Warlord Traits but the warscrolls themselves are separate to the Warscroll Builder app.
The rumored 40k app is purportedly going to be like that, where you have an easy way to build and check lists and then maybe we'll see an Age of Sigmar style app that has the datasheets themselves added in later.

**Kaiyanwang**

Crimson Devil wrote:
Kaiyanwang wrote:
Halfpast_Yellow wrote:
Kaiyanwang wrote:
sennacherib wrote:
Um. Because GW isn’t a charity.

I am not a charity, either.
I am not going to pay for non-functional rules, and then pay again for a sloppy errata.

'Non-functional'

So don't. Such entitlement complexes in this thread.

The point is that that is a shallow defence: other companies do not charge for errata because they recognize that is their duty to fix their shortcomings and do not charge the customer fo those.
The "battered wife" GW customer considers requiring such normal thing "entitlement".

As apposed to what you're doing? Stalking you Ex.

Not really, I restarted to be a customer with 8th. But is clear that GW is the same old, and the designer the same incompetent bunch.