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Ruin_In_The_Dark wrote:
I can't believe we are this close to release and still have so little info to work with. It seems really strange that GW are finally bringing necro back, which seems to be something the community has wanted for a long time and GW give us the silent treatment. I know they aren't one for advertising but if they handled this well they could really generate some hype behind the release. At least tease some of the other gangs!!

I think the current major focus is Shadespire, with a secondary focus on 40K codex. And it actually works, as I was initially more interested in Necromunda than in Shadespire, but now can't wait for my copy next Saturday.

In a week or two, when Shadespire is really running and people are generating their own discussions on forums, I suspect they'll shift the focus to Necro.

I'm getting a bit of a "silently panicking" vibe from GW lately...releasing so much big stuff in such a short amount of time...the past 4-5 months they've brought out a new edition of 40k, with a new starter box, a fairly beefy expansion/subfaction for space marines, pretty much an entire army reboot/new model line for death guard, several other new codex's (all with post-release FAQ's), and now the shadespire game...I'm sure I've missed some stuff too...but that's a fair amount of big stuff to plan a release schedule for and keep everything running smoothly...isn't it? or does it just seem like that to me for some reason?

 ZoBo wrote:
I'm getting a bit of a "silently panicking" vibe from GW lately...releasing so much big stuff in such a short amount of time...the past 4-5 months they've brought out a new edition of 40k, with a new starter box, a fairly beefy expansion/subfaction for space marines, pretty much an entire army reboot/new model line for death guard, several other new codex's (all with post-release FAQ's), and now the shadespire game...I'm sure I've missed some stuff too...but that's a fair amount of big stuff to plan a release schedule for and keep everything running smoothly...isn't it? or does it just seem like that to me for some reason?

Well its not unusual for a new edition launch - basically two new armies.
There have been no new models for anyone else in 40k just codexes, much of which, even the covers, are copy / paste.
Generating the Chapter Tactics follow a formula, again the FAs would not take much time as it seems the website guys are collating Questions so that someone from rules can work through them
Shadespire has been in the pipeline for months.

Compared to any other games company its not a huge amount really I don't think.

I don't think GW is panicking I think instead they are trying to give gamers what they've asked for for a very long time - a new edition launch of a core game that updates all armies to current rules quickly. That makes sense for gamers and for GW because it means an end to armies being left to gather dust on shelves.

I think GW doesn't want to have a repeat of armies like Dark Eldar - who got so far behind they missed one whole edition of rules and were running two editions behind at one point. It's madness from GW's point of view because it means that they've got investments in moulds and stock that isn't going to sell and means that they've often got to invest way more into that faction to relaunch them to the market.

Far better to get all armies out quickly so that sales are spread over all factions and all are brought up to count. No factions are left behind for years at a time. It builds nicely into a release pattern whre they are going to release new units/models via data-slates. IF all armies are current then a new model - even a single model or duel kit - is going to get good sales and reception in general because it will fit into an army that is and can currently be used in the game.

On Thursday at 4:00 pm, we’ll be checking in with Tony Cottrell, head of the Forge World studio. While we can’t reveal what he’ll be showing off, we can guarantee it’ll be awesome – would you expect anything else from the team that brought you the Horus Heresy?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/17/this-week-on-warhammer-live-craftworlds-preview-tonys-mystery-crate-and-more/


Necromunda pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Nah, pretty sure that'll be Adeptus Titanicus.....

it could also just be a proper "official" look at that giant primaris marine hover-tank thing...so don't go getting to excited, just in case...

Nah, it'll be Adeptus Titanicus.

Because if it's not, I riot.

On my own.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Nah, it'll be Adeptus Titanicus.

Because if it's not, I riot.

On my own.

Not on your own, Princeps.

 Nostromodamus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Nah, it'll be Adeptus Titanicus.

Because if it's not, I riot.

On my own.

Not on your own, Princeps.

Starting to sound like an army up in here.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Nah, pretty sure that'll be Adeptus Titanicus.....

I doubt it. It’s still a way off (probably around this time next year).

Doesn't mean they can't show off where it's up to.

We've seen relatively little evidence of the game as things go.

Guess we'll know in around four hours from now

I'm a bit bummed we didn't hear anything today (not that my hopes were super high), it's been since the first week in September that they have given us anything on Necromunda.

Hopefully once Shadespire releases, we'll get a bit more info, though I have a feeling we won't get much until early November. I'm guessing Necromunda will be 11/25 release, so that may be why we've heard so little.

 Sabotage! wrote:
I'm a bit bummed we didn't hear anything today (not that my hopes were super high), it's been since the first week in September that they have given us anything on Necromunda.

Hopefully once Shadespire releases, we'll get a bit more info, though I have a feeling we won't get much until early November. I'm guessing Necromunda will be 11/25 release, so that may be why we've heard so little.

Yeah, they specifically said they are not allowed to talk about Necromunda until November. I don't know if I'd take that as a sign that it's that late in the month, but they're definitely waiting until the Shadespire release has settled before they progress to the next big thing.

Yeah, they were pretty upfront about not being allowed to say anything till November on the stream today.

Ah, good to know, I missed the stream today. Thanks Geifer and Potato.

Doesn't that kinda imply that they believe their customers buy everything? And that showing off another product would some how distract, diminish or even sabotage an earlier release?

I'm sure there are tons of people who are interested in Shadespire who don't care about Necromunda/40K in general. I don't care about Shadespire/AoS at all, so the sudden reveal of Necromunda isn't about to make me go "Oh well, I guess I'll ignore Shadespire now!".

No need to split the hype, I guess.

I'm all excited to see the other Gangs, spesh my beloved Cawdor.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Doesn't that kinda imply that they believe their customers buy everything? And that showing off another product would some how distract, diminish or even sabotage an earlier release?

I'm sure there are tons of people who are interested in Shadespire who don't care about Necromunda/40K in general. I don't care about Shadespire/AoS at all, so the sudden reveal of Necromunda isn't about to make me go "Oh well, I guess I'll ignore Shadespire now!".

No.

Promotion is a job in and of itself. As an example, a hollywood movie that costs $50 million needs to actually make $100 million back to recoup its costs as the advertising budget is generally the same as the original budget of the movie.

So it goes with most things.

So you have a bunch of games designers. Lets imagine they're employed on a salary of maybe £30-40,000 p/a (does anyone know the base rate for a GW games designer? I'm hoping they get paid more than me, at the very least!). Lets say a game takes 3-4 months of design, you have the miniature designers too, possibly a project manager to push the designs into physical production, choosing materials, etc. I've run a department before: All of that is expensive. And I don't have to actually sell things to real people.

So then you have a release window and you have to produce all the materials to go along with that. Posters, adverts in trade magazines, and to top it all you have your expensive miniature/games designers spending hours at a time writing articles for your advertising magazine and going on podcasts, still being paid their basic salary to do promotion.

All of that is hugely expensive, time-consuming, and cumulative, even for a small game like Shadespire. Having a window post-release to stick all of your marketing and hype into makes sense, to stop the cost of that promotion from spiralling.

Honestly, I get what you're trying to say but these kinds of criticisms don't really stand up to scrutiny when you really, really think about them.

It has been rumoured for a while that Necromunda will be the last week of November so there is still a full month to go. That is more time than most releases get. We already know a lot. We have seen all the minis that are coming on the box. There have been public gameplay demos. This month's white dwarf has two full page ads which again is more than most GW stuff gets.
I am sure we knew less about bloodbowl at this stage than Necromunda.
Also Necromunda is the closest to a sure thing that GW has.
They really don't need to build hype.
This thread has 52 pages compared for 24 for Shadespire.
Just saying Necromunda exists is enough to send a lot of people's hype through the roof.
I am sure there will be plenty of info in white dwarf. Warhammer live has changed it schedule specifically to accommodate Necromunda. They will definitely be doing daily articles on the community site.

There is also the audience to consider. Necromunda is aimed squarely at the core GW fan base, the kind of people who check this forum every day.
If Necromunda does not sell like hotcakes I will be very surprised.

Finally the news cycle is much faster now. If you want to create buzz on twitter and Facebook, it is much better to focus your promotion into a much shorter time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No need to split the hype, I guess.

I'm all excited to see the other Gangs, spesh my beloved Cawdor.

I'm so with you on this. I know it has been mentioned that GW is going to try to have more gangs than the starter ones available on release, and I'm really hoping that Cawdor is one of them. I'm actually very curious to see what they do with the aesthetics of the gangs not shown yet. Will they choose the Biker Gang or the West Side Story look for Orlocks? While a cool concept as a tech gang, I always thought the Van Saar were really boring visually (Chuck Norris clones in bodysuits.....yah....), hopefully they make make them look a bit more like their artwork and give them a more colorful look. I imagine Delaque and Cawdor will look pretty similar to their last renditions (which is good in my opinion).

Another good reason to play things close to the chest for creative releases is that it gives GW room to move release dates without causing market backlash. If the customer knows its coming "soon" that gives most producers a period of time in which their actual release date has some flex to it.

Now GW strikes me that they are pretty darn tight with their release windows right now; however having the option of being flexible with the release date right up until you're basically done with production of stock for sale is a very powerful thing.

I think its also now general GW policy to make it easier for their employees and contacts to be aware of release dates and when they can/can't talk about prerelease. This is all about GW protecting itself from the resculpting market that has attached itself to GW. GW wants to have all the hype and all the early sales of models that they release; they don't want a 3rd party stealing the shine (esp as the market that 3rd parties are likely to steal are those who have the larger incomes and likely are more involved with the hobby itself - thus prime customers to hang onto).


Whilst GW will nearly always beat most 3rd parties on sale volume; marketing wise GW don't want to hand them anything for free. It's why codex don't have any things GW doesn't produce (along with making it easier for new people to get into the hobby); its why pre-release info is so tightly controlled until the window of time is very tiny.




Finally don't forget that a very long release window and lots of early marketing can sour a community. People like waiting for a period of time; then they get bored and frustrated. GW doesn't want people annoyed, they want them excited - building the biggest hype.

Further if you're waiting to buy something you might well be saving; that means you're not spending on GW products right now. So instead by keeping to short windows GW minimises the amount of potential saving time.

 Overread wrote:

Further if you're waiting to buy something you might well be saving; that means you're not spending on GW products right now. So instead by keeping to short windows GW minimises the amount of potential saving time.

And in so doing ensures some of us spend much less on GW than we otherwise would.

Exactly.

Right now I want to see what's coming out for Necromunda. Making us wait another month doesn't mean I'm going to buy all their other releases in the meantime...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Exactly.

Right now I want to see what's coming out for Necromunda. Making us wait another month doesn't mean I'm going to buy all their other releases in the meantime...

I’m sure there are people who will, though.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Exactly.

Right now I want to see what's coming out for Necromunda. Making us wait another month doesn't mean I'm going to buy all their other releases in the meantime...

I’m sure there are people who will, though.

Exactly.

GW social media manager: "Sir, we got a situation here! Forum user #168225 on messageboard #367 says he isn't going to buy release X because he disagrees with generic GW hate reason #4843!"
GW corporate manager: "Good lord. Full halt, total change of strategy!"

 Sabotage! wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No need to split the hype, I guess.

I'm all excited to see the other Gangs, spesh my beloved Cawdor.

I'm so with you on this. I know it has been mentioned that GW is going to try to have more gangs than the starter ones available on release, and I'm really hoping that Cawdor is one of them. I'm actually very curious to see what they do with the aesthetics of the gangs not shown yet. Will they choose the Biker Gang or the West Side Story look for Orlocks? While a cool concept as a tech gang, I always thought the Van Saar were really boring visually (Chuck Norris clones in bodysuits.....yah....), hopefully they make make them look a bit more like their artwork and give them a more colorful look. I imagine Delaque and Cawdor will look pretty similar to their last renditions (which is good in my opinion).

We think alike when it comes to aesthetics!

I've always found Orlock and Van Saar the least inspiring of the looks. Nothing that can't be fixed with resculpts though (I mean, look at Goliath. Much more impressive these days).

Now I'm torn though. Gonnna be pretty flush in November. Need to get Necromunda and more terrain (there's no such thing as too much terrain in a collection). But also kind of want a new TV. Current one works fine, but is tiny. And far away.

 ekwatts wrote:
"... generic GW hate..."

Hate hey?

Got an actual point to make, or just more bull gak?

I would assume the launch will be the boxed game, the "Hive War" book expansion and a 3rd gang separately, much like how Bloodbowl launched...question is which gang?

I'm hoping it's more than just a third gang, and I'm hoping that the boxed gangs see a quicker separate release than the boxed Blood Bowl teams.