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 notprop wrote:
Toy soldiers were only played with by adults until Gw plc messed things up in the late 90s?

Not sure about the Specialist stuff you quote but the 1987 first edition Bloodbowl states it's for 12 to adult on the box and RT states 16 to adult.

Games have always been for children and adults of course, who take it all way too seriously!

I don't think you actually read the post you were replying to.

 frozenwastes wrote:

GW could really stand to think a bit more about how to keep their child customer base and rebuild/retain their adult customer base.

Well that's the point really - targeting both the young and the old doesn't have to be mutually exclusive; there is a middle ground that can be trod. I sometimes can't understand what, on the face of it, would appear to be deliberate attempts by GW to ignore certain consumer demographics.

Ah, I think the perfect time to post this picture! Let us never forget the illustrious beginnings of the wargaming hobby..

Miniature wargaming still is a mostly adult hobby. While it may have gotten a bit of attention around the turn of the 20th century and into the roarding 20s after the publication of Little Wars by HG Wells in 1913, the wargaming hobby has largely been the domain of adult males. From the 19th century Kriegspielers, to the sand table owners, to the hex games of the 60s and 70s, it's largely been an adult hobby.

While teenagers and 12+ kids have always been accepted as customers by any smart wargaming seller, the basic idea was that they were playing a game meant for adults. The rules were complex and part of the appeal to the younger players was that they were doing stuff older and more mature people were into. It was aspirational.

GW was smart enough to realize that the 12+ market has a lot of money in it. So in the late 1990s they started going after it. The adult hobby of miniature wargaming has survived just fine alongside it, and GW has thrown the occasional bone to their existing adult customer base, but largely, their products are designed for children whereas in the past they were designed for adults.

I think GW could target the child market without losing the adult market it they brought back part of the aspirational angle. They even still have a portion of their customer base that are adults that keep buying a product aimed at children.

I think they could redesign their product experience from the ground up so that it could still be marketed at children and return to their roots of a product that meets the needs of adult gamers, and not just those who stick around with GW's stuff despite (or because of) the fact that it's very teenage boy in it's mentality and presentation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:
Ah, I think the perfect time to post this picture! Let us never forget the illustrious beginnings of the wargaming hobby..

Nice. Bunch of stodgy guys in suits

And 101 years before the publication of Little Wars by HG Wells, you have Kriegsspeil which started out as an officer training program in the Prussian military.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_%28wargame%29

I still maintain that a lot of what the adult posters are having issue with in this thread stems from the fact that GW is going after children with their products. From the simplified terrain, to the price hikes that won't seem so bad to someone who doesn't stick around as an adult lifer, to the rules being made for Jervis' 12 year old son, to the shelving of the tactically deep games which may not be ideal for 12+ year olds and distract from the "ooh-- shiney!" of their big three games, almost everything is explained by GW's change in target demographic.

The adult market is there. Just look at Forgeworld's excellent performance. Or the proliferation of resin aftermarket accessory sellers. Or the Kickstarters hitting huge amounts of money where you're likely not a 12-16 year old funding that.

I used to think GW made up a vast majority of miniature wargaming sales. I thought perhaps they made up 90%+ of the market. Now I think it's probably less than half and declining.

Elemental wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Toy soldiers were only played with by adults until Gw plc messed things up in the late 90s?

Not sure about the Specialist stuff you quote but the 1987 first edition Bloodbowl states it's for 12 to adult on the box and RT states 16 to adult.
CO4 5EG
Games have always been for children and adults of course, who take it all way too seriously!

I don't think you actually read the post you were replying to.

Something you appear to have done as well, clearly my post indicates that gaming even under the evil GW corporation has never been selling to just adults.

The problem arises because in a gw account report some years ago the chairmans preamble stated that GWs target audience was
12-16 iirc. Many have taken umbridge against this as they see "their" hobby as a mature and adult pastime, you know "serious" business nothing childish like playing toy soldiers.

Now I don't see any problem with this, this demographic generates the most revenue for them so this is how it is. Whether you believe his has affected games and model design is a point of some conjecture. What isn't is the dropping or removal of on going expansion to the specialist games, this sticks in the craw a bit from a vets PoV which would go some way to meeting filberts complaints I'm sure. Hopefully one of the box releases will make them realise here is a market for Epic but I am not hopeful for this until the current recession and the Hobbit films have passed.

 filbert wrote:
Well that's the point really - targeting both the young and the old doesn't have to be mutually exclusive; there is a middle ground that can be trod. I sometimes can't understand what, on the face of it, would appear to be deliberate attempts by GW to ignore certain consumer demographics.

How could GW cater to the more "mature" gamer? Free porn in White Dwarf?

Free bottle of Bugmans with every issue!

Why is it that any time people talk about hobbies that appeal to adults or people who have finished maturing out of childhood, someone comes around to make a porn joke? I guess the slow pitches are just so tempting at times that you've got to swing. Or to use another metaphor, the low hanging fruit is easy to pick.

The "how" is that you aim your target market at 18-24 so that the 12-18 see it as something to aspire to and the 18+ see it as not being childish or stupid. You don't intentionally write the rules with your 12 year old son in mind.

There were some adult themes in the 2nd edition fluff that got gutted with the fictionless wasteland that was 3rd edition. Since then they've been rebuilding the fiction to appeal to adolescent readers. The latest codecies have been reading like fanfic designed to boost up mary-sue characters. It's a far cry from the atmospheric stuff inspired by Brian Ansell's Imperial Commander and Laserburn fictional universes that make up the foundation of 40k's background universe.

Black Library has done a great job making stuff that is way, way better than the fiction in the game books, but it too is still aimed at an adolescent target market. If you want to see 40k fiction done right, properly aimed at adults, take a look at the Fantasy Flight Games RPG material.

White Dwarf is supposedly getting a major overhaul. This is one area where they could really raise the level of their communications with their fans. I'm guessing though, that the WD team is probably having meetings where the suits tell the creative types "Remember, this magazine needs to appeal to 12 year olds!"

 frozenwastes wrote:
You don't intentionally write the rules with your 12 year old son in mind.

Why not? I mean, the US Army writes all of its manuals to an 8th grade reading level (which is, IIRC 13-14 years old). By writing rules to a slightly younger crowd, you can ensure that people don't need a genius level IQ to be able to comprehend and play the rules as written....



Of course, this is GW we're talking about here, and ambiguous unclear rules is the name of the game.

 frozenwastes wrote:

stuff..
<snip>
White Dwarf is supposedly getting a major overhaul. This is one area where they could really raise the level of their communications with their fans. I'm guessing though, that the WD team is probably having meetings where the suits tell the creative types "Remember, this magazine needs to appeal to 12 year olds!"

Isn't it already? Lots of bright pictures, few words..

Joking aside, it's precisely because the fluff has such a long history behind it that we get all these mary-sue characters. They have to go beyond the previous levels every time they update a codex, naturally. Or fight their tendencies to 'reimagine' a faction.

Remembered a new gripe over the weekend - putting the damn led models together or more specifically cleaning mould lines!

I swear if I could buy a models that didn't have hands with mould lines that go in ane out of each and every blooming finger I'd buy all of them!

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
You don't intentionally write the rules with your 12 year old son in mind.

Why not? I mean, the US Army writes all of its manuals to an 8th grade reading level (which is, IIRC 13-14 years old). By writing rules to a slightly younger crowd, you can ensure that people don't need a genius level IQ to be able to comprehend and play the rules as written....

Of course, this is GW we're talking about here, and ambiguous unclear rules is the name of the game.

Reading level isn't the same issue as target age for game play. You can explain very complex concepts using simple words and sentence structures. What I'm talking about is tactical depth. Like what Epic: Armageddon or Warmaster has. Relatively simple concepts expressed in clear and simple language (probably at a grade 6 reading level even) that provide tactical depth way beyond GW's core games. In the RPG world, Pathfinder is written at a grade 8 or so reading level, but they know their primary audience is made up of adults and the material is excellent and has a combination of both complex and simple elements to appeal to a variety of customers from casual to dedicated.

Shandara wrote:
Isn't it already? Lots of bright pictures, few words..

Yeah... I'm saying that despite any talk of an overhaul, I see no reason why GW is going to change its target demographic. If there are creative types on the WD team who start straying into articles that might be more appreciated by adults, I'm sure they'll be reminded that it's all about the 12 year olds.

Joking aside, it's precisely because the fluff has such a long history behind it that we get all these mary-sue characters. They have to go beyond the previous levels every time they update a codex, naturally. Or fight their tendencies to 'reimagine' a faction.

Yeah. It's a common trap for writers. You have to keep one-upping yourself if you don't instead make something of substance.

None of this is going to change though. GW has chosen their business plan and it's making the top executives of the company rich. They're not going to stop with the yearly price hikes, cutting store services, keeping staff at a minimum, having cookie cutter terrain, aiming the hobby at children or doing any of the other things people don't like when they're old enough to know better.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Did you know in the first half of the 90s Epic stuff was their number 2 seller ahead of WFB? It was only when they scuttled it with the simplified Epic 40,000 version that it died. People found it overly simplistic and bland compared to the 1st and 2nd edition games like Adeptus Titanicus, Space Marine and Titan Legions.

I would take issue with both your opinion of Epic 3rd ed. and your analysis of its impact on GW's direction. I played Epic 2nd ed. for many years, and frankly it was an overcomplicated mess of a game, vastly overstuffed with rules exceptions and details unnecessary in a large-scale wargame, which tended to swamp tactical play. 3rd ed., by contrast, was one of GW's finest creations (one of the rare points on which I agree with Andy and Jervis), with elegant, consistent rules which allowed and encouraged tactical, manoeuvre-based play. Certainly it was simpler and more abstract than the previous edition, but complexity of rules does not equate to tactical complexity, indeed more often the relationship is quite the reverse. (This is also why Space Hulk is generally regarded by those who understand such things to be a significantly better tactical game than Warhammer 40,000.)

The tournament circuit and "competitive players" of the time (myself included) by and large welcomed the changes the new edition brought; it was the kids and "casual players" who disdained the game, as it lacked the fluffiness and chrome they were used to in GW's games. If its failure taught GW anything, it was that the majority of their customers didn't want an objectively well-written, balanced, tactically deep game, considering it "bland" and "simplistic"; they wanted fiddly exceptions and endless lists of special rules to remember, and called that "characterful" and "complex". Frankly, I'd lay the blame for GW's present attitude to their customers squarely at the feet of everybody who whined about their last good rulesset back in 1997, and made it clear to them that good games didn't sell.

I loved 3rd Ed, EPIC 40k. Bring it back, v2 just an updated version not a 4th Ed.

My favorite edition would be Epic:Armageddon. It has a nice middle ground thing going on.

It could well be that Epic 40k was actually a good game, but it was enough of a shock to the existing player base that it basically scuttled the line.

And over the next five years GW adopted the "Core three games" company policy and the game has never gotten a fair shake again. Epic: Armageddon even had the majority of it's list development work done by fan volunteers because GW was allocating no resources to it.

I skipped over everything to post this:

I wanted the RoB board when it was 175 USD. However, at the
higher price I felt that it wasn't worth my money. I don't think it's
even good as a starter cost for someone new to the hobby.

But at 175? I thought that might be worth it.

The whole point of GW's higher prices for starter type products is to maximize the money they get from someone before they quit.

I don't hate children, I love my kids as well as my nieces and nephews. My problem stems from the fact that at some point in time parents stopped being parents. Which means 8 out othe 10 kids I see act like little brates. Their not tought manners or how to act in a socially acceptable manner. I'm not interested in hearing an 8 or 12 year old curse more than a grown man does. It doesnt make you sound more mature.

There are two things tied for "worst" in my mind:

1) Having to buy the fluff over and over again. The story behind 40K (and WHFB, for that matter) have never really advanced, and no one really needs more than one version to understand the universe they are playing in. Black Library covers all of that quite nicely. I would gladly pay $50 for an 80-page rule book, instead of $100+ for 300 page book with 80 pages of rules. And yes, I loved the stripped-down format of the earliest 3rd edition 40K codices.

2) Not being allowed to dislike anything about GW. Early on in this thread, someone posted something to the effect of "Don't like it? Sell your army and GTFO." Discontent should be a catalyst for positive change, not a call to circle the wagons...

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Testify wrote:
I don't understand why so many people hate children, or specifically hate children being bought stuff by their parents. Was everyone in this thread raised in a barn or something?

I mean, imagine a child wanting something from Games Workshop for his birthday. The *shame*.

Miniature wargaming has historically been an adult's hobby. GW is the one who figured out that children and teenagers can be a good target market. There's nothing wrong with it.

The problem is that from 1998 and on, they switched their target market to primarily being non-adults. So a lot of people who started with GW as they grew from a UK based company to an international one during the 1990s have largely been abandoned in terms of products designed for them. Forge World helps with this, but when you have things like Jervis saying he wants the codecies to be written for his 12 year old son, and the added randomness and simplification with each new edition release, people are getting sick of not being GW's target audience. They also shelved all of their tactically deep games like Warmaster, Epic, BFG, etc.,. Did you know in the first half of the 90s Epic stuff was their number 2 seller ahead of WFB? It was only when they scuttled it with the simplified Epic 40,000 version that it died. People found it overly simplistic and bland compared to the 1st and 2nd edition games like Adeptus Titanicus, Space Marine and Titan Legions. Epic: Armageddon returned to the original legacy with a tactically deep game and despite selling 600% (according to Jervis while Fanatic was still around) of projected sales, they still shelved it as it was the new corporate plan to only market Warhammer 40k, WFB and LotR.

GW could really stand to think a bit more about how to keep their child customer base and rebuild/retain their adult customer base.

Long live Epic... Great game dude...

JoshInJapan wrote:

2) Not being allowed to dislike anything about GW. Early on in this thread, someone posted something to the effect of "Don't like it? Sell your army and GTFO." Discontent should be a catalyst for positive change, not a call to circle the wagons...

Yea that kind of attitude is just plain annoying, disliking something and explaining why doesn't mean I hate everything GW does and should leave the hobby and liking something and arguing for it does not make me a GW apologist/fanboy/idiot.

JoshInJapan wrote:
1) Having to buy the fluff over and over again. The story behind 40K (and WHFB, for that matter) have never really advanced, and no one really needs more than one version to understand the universe they are playing in. Black Library covers all of that quite nicely. I would gladly pay $50 for an 80-page rule book, instead of $100+ for 300 page book with 80 pages of rules. And yes, I loved the stripped-down format of the earliest 3rd edition 40K codices.

Codices I'll grant you. Rulebooks? You're literally complaining about GW giving you what you want. Buy the starter set, or ebay the rulebook out of it. It is exactly what you are complaining about not being able to buy. Just the rules.

 malfred wrote:
I skipped over everything to post this:

I wanted the RoB board when it was 175 USD. However, at the
higher price I felt that it wasn't worth my money. I don't think it's
even good as a starter cost for someone new to the hobby.

But at 175? I thought that might be worth it.

Yeah, IIRC the RoB board got two price increases before it was even released. I remember it was kinda funny at the time, White Dwarf came out with the $175 price printed in it or something, and GW stuck an insert in that issue with the "corrected" price, and either at the same time the White Dwarf came out or soon after, even that wasn't the right price anymore and it had gone up again.

In any case I remembered talking about going half-in on a board with my brother when it was $175, then when the price almost doubled I said "Screw it" and put the idea out of my head.

JoshInJapan wrote:
2) Not being allowed to dislike anything about GW. Early on in this thread, someone posted something to the effect of "Don't like it? Sell your army and GTFO." Discontent should be a catalyst for positive change, not a call to circle the wagons...

Exactly.

If I'm not allowed to express my opinion on a topic, in a thread on a discussion forum that's dedicated to said topic, then where the hell can I express my opinion? You don't have to agree with me, but it's just plain wrong to tell someone to "Shut up and quit the hobby!" just because you don't see things from their point of view, when we're all posting on a forum where different points of view are supposedly all welcome. It also goes without saying that you can still enjoy the game, being capable of pointing out flaws or criticizing some aspects of the game that don't make sense or make it less enjoyable doesn't mean you're suffering through it all and making yourself do something you "clearly" hate, a lot of people out there have fun despite all of that. I personally don't anymore, it's why I quit playing the game about a year ago and why I quit buying models for the most part back in about January (Finecast was kind of the last straw for me, and the only reason I bought Dark Vengeance is because it's one of those extremely rare cases where GW provided good value for money and it was hard to pass up, I don't even play either of those armies but I liked the models enough and getting a compact version of the rules is an obvious bonus).

In any case, I'm entitled to my opinion the same as you are, I'm not breaking any Dakka rules by being the so-called "vocal minority", and I'm not obligated to remove myself from a community that I clearly enjoy being a part of in some way or I wouldn't have fething spent years being a part of it, all just for your sake. You don't like what you perceive to be "pointless and/or excessive negativity", or just straight up "hating" on a company you're fond of? Then don't expose yourself to it. Put me on ignore if my opinion really bothers you that much (half of Dakka already has), or better than that, just skip reading these kinds of threads where it's obvious from the title that it's going to contain a little bit of negativity. Much easier than expecting everyone else to bend to your will, I'll tell you that much. I'm not going anywhere, and every time you tell me to "Get out" I just dig in deeper. Take your own advice and give it up already.

Also, if no one expressed their opinions, gak wouldn't get done. If no one ever complained then how would anything ever improve? What would be the point in striving for better quality if everyone just shut up and accepted everything for how it was? I wonder if GW would have ever invested in better technology and started putting out higher-quality plastic kits if no one complained about the old ones feeling too "cheap" and being generally boring, mono-posed models.

 -Loki- wrote:

JoshInJapan wrote:
1) Having to buy the fluff over and over again. The story behind 40K (and WHFB, for that matter) have never really advanced, and no one really needs more than one version to understand the universe they are playing in. Black Library covers all of that quite nicely. I would gladly pay $50 for an 80-page rule book, instead of $100+ for 300 page book with 80 pages of rules. And yes, I loved the stripped-down format of the earliest 3rd edition 40K codices.

Codices I'll grant you. Rulebooks? You're literally complaining about GW giving you what you want. Buy the starter set, or ebay the rulebook out of it. It is exactly what you are complaining about not being able to buy. Just the rules.

That's not really much of an option, though. $80 for the gigantic hardback rulebook which is impractical for actually taking to games with you, or $100 for a smaller, paperback, "rules-only" version that's easier for actual gaming but also comes with a bunch of models you might not necessarily want. eBay doesn't really count either since that's not a service GW is providing me, they aren't giving me what I want in that case.

I bought Dark Vengeance because I kinda wanted the models, but if all you wanted was the rules GW doesn't really provide you with a good option, you're still going to spend almost $100 no matter what. That said it'll probably work out better just to buy the starter set anyway and sell all the models on eBay, if you're lucky you might make most of your money back, but wouldn't it still be easier for GW to just offer you that option in the first place? Or is GW afraid that the box won't sell itself and that offering the mini rulebook separately will hurt sales of both the starter and the hardcover rulebook? Clearly there would still be a market for the fancier hardcover option or Privateer Press wouldn't have been offering both options for their books.

Wyrd Miniatures reported that when they added a Malifaux mini rulebook for $15 that had all the rules reorganized, clarified and incorporating the Q&A and Errata, it actually caused an increase in their full size rulebook sales. People would buy a $50 starter and the $15 rulebook and then want the full sized rulebook for the fiction, picutres and art.

Then again, Malifaux has adults as their target audience for their products. Maybe GW thinks that their teenager market market would never do something like be so impressed with the game and miniatures that they go back and buy another book for the fiction and art. Instead, they want to frontload the cost of entry so they can get as much money from each customer before they quit.

JoshInJapan wrote:
2) Not being allowed to dislike anything about GW. Early on in this thread, someone posted something to the effect of "Don't like it? Sell your army and GTFO." Discontent should be a catalyst for positive change, not a call to circle the wagons...

This. The "haterz gunna hate"-crowd is one of the worst parts of the GW hobby.

Another one is the fact that it's called "the GW hobby".

That everything changes ruleswise (Core or Codex) before I can even get an army built, converted, and painted.

However, I'm sure that really only effects slowpoke, cheapskate me.