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This does include FW unfortunately enough for GW... ermmm GW(fw), or w/e. Ahem...

SO, I don't like them personally. I have seen more than enough bad things to turn me off from their products. Oddly enough the ability to play a game easily because of their international marketing seems to be the only thing keeping me playing. Here is the rub though, I play WH40k because a lot of other people do... GW takes this as some sort of sign that they have a corporate right to try and pillage the war-gaming community as their own. Seems like a midgetixed version of your standard energy and money/law corporation to me.

I am not going to argue about how I feel about this, and I expect people to be as honest as possible in turn. If you really want to fake your votes, I could care less, this information is made de' la' Wrex for GW to ponder.

HAVE FUN!!! HUT HUT!!!

voted like them. It's where I game most since there are no real independent places that also have table and the like, near me and I don't know enough people out of my LGS who play 40k to form a club.... actually everyone I know who plays are people I met at GW and we're all basically acquaintances.


EDIT- On pricing, old army codices, etc. I dislike them.


-Orkishly

I BROKE YER POLL! I VOTED FOR EVERYTHING!!!!


In all honesty I'm kind of disappointed with some of their practices like lack of support for older or seemingly less popular fare like Dark Eldar or the Inquisition Codices. I also don't like that they have a bajillion options described in creating your army list but trying to model the said options can be a pain if you aren't exactly skilled at conversions and such; options that don't match product can be annoying.

I think GW are like the average politician. They may make a lot of mistakes and do stupid things, but most of them are well-intentioned. I think that hate for one aspect of GW seeps over into other aspects. For example, if the prices for models were lower, I don't think people would whine and bitch about codecies as much, and if codecies were written better, then people wouldn't whine as much about the cost of the models.

The writers in particular don't mean to screw us over (except Gav Thorpe, who apparently hates CSM), but they don't seem to keep track of the current metagame and don't seem very involved with each other's work. If they worked as a group on the codecies, the metagame as a whole would be more balanced and fluff would transition over to gameplay better.

Cheese Elemental wrote:I think GW are like the average politician. They may make a lot of mistakes and do stupid things, but most of them are well-intentioned. I think that hate for one aspect of GW seeps over into other aspects. For example, if the prices for models were lower, I don't think people would whine and bitch about codecies as much, and if codecies were written better, then people wouldn't whine as much about the cost of the models.

The writers in particular don't mean to screw us over (except Gav Thorpe, who apparently hates CSM), but they don't seem to keep track of the current metagame and don't seem very involved with each other's work. If they worked as a group on the codecies, the metagame as a whole would be more balanced and fluff would transition over to gameplay better.

Yes... but they do both of the bad actions. Charge and barge is the name of the day.

Its a give and take situation.

I like how much GW has grown and expanded their reach and product range, but I do not like the changes that have occured to facilitate that expansion.

In order to compete more internationally, to decrease their production costs while increasing their technical and design capabilities GW has needed to become a more cut throat (effective) collectable games company (BTW, what is their official business description ?)
This includes hiring management and marketing staff who look at the products as nothing more than.......products.

Everything in my working experience and education applauds GW for their Scorched Earth pricing and marketing strategies, but my experiences playing their games and the ways they have changed them is not so happy.

I wish they would provide more support for their discontinued (specialist games) or at least relax their IP policies so interested entrepreneurs can provide support.

ShotgunFacelift wrote:Its a give and take situation.

I like how much GW has grown and expanded their reach and product range, but I do not like the changes that have occured to facilitate that expansion.

In order to compete more internationally, to decrease their production costs while increasing their technical and design capabilities GW has needed to become a more cut throat (effective) collectable games company (BTW, what is their official business description ?)
This includes hiring management and marketing staff who look at the products as nothing more than.......products.

Everything in my working experience and education applauds GW for their Scorched Earth pricing and marketing strategies, but my experiences playing their games and the ways they have changed them is not so happy.

I wish they would provide more support for their discontinued (specialist games) or at least relax their IP policies so interested entrepreneurs can provide support.

Yes, read the orange deeply young Jedi.

I like 40k, I like cool miniatures. I don't like being gouged for them.

Yay for IP, boo for buisness management that doesnt focus on what the customers want.

Cheese Elemental wrote:I think GW are like the average politician. They may make a lot of mistakes and do stupid things, but most of them are well-intentioned.

If you add healthy dose of self-preservation to that (ie. will do good for themselves before anyone else) and you've pretty much nailed what GW is.

I still don't like them. Meaning well doesn't get you off the hook when you feth up, so GW is not immune. I don't want to burn them to the ground (not even the idiots in FW who are often times worse than regular GW), and their are parts of the company I praise and will continue to praise (like US Mail Order), but yeah, I don't like them.

I totally love GW/FW/BL whatever. I think they are putting out a product and you either like it or don't, buy it or don't. I think they make *cough* interesting decisions on some game elements, but what the heck!

And yet we still continue to play their games. If you dislike the company and whine about the game, why do you still play it?

That's not an argument, it's just some food for thought.

Cheese Elemental wrote:And yet we still continue to play their games. If you dislike the company and whine about the game, why do you still play it?

That's not an argument, it's just some food for thought.

Meh...

Cheese Elemental wrote:If they worked as a group on the codecies, the metagame as a whole would be more balanced and fluff would transition over to gameplay better.

This is a very good point, I think.

I voted like. They sell a product of generally good quality in a mostly effective way. I find that, as a general rule, people complain about a thing in order to seem like they know what they are talking about. (This is not aimed at anyone posting here specifically.) And, as I've said before, the more impressionable folks out there automatically equate cynicism with wisdom. I guess I'd be happier with GW if they called me personally on the phone to ask what products I would like to buy or see supported and then gave me all of those things for free. But then all of you would probably have a thread about hating me.

Two out of my three Battlewagons are based on WWII toys that I bought at Target, and they all have deff rollas made from sprue bits and tubes from used fireworks. What do you think?

Cheese Elemental wrote:And yet we still continue to play their games. If you dislike the company and whine about the game, why do you still play it?

Heh. I don't play their game. I buy their models, and I read their rules, but I sure as hell don't play their game...

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:And yet we still continue to play their games. If you dislike the company and whine about the game, why do you still play it?

Heh. I don't play their game. I buy their models, and I read their rules, but I sure as hell don't play their game...

Good point ;P


Same wit me - i only have FW models now - just to look good.

It seems to me that they are only interested in doing things that make them money over the short term instead of doing things like making better rules and making a better game.


I know they have to make money, but making a better product will help them achieve that.

Wrexasaur wrote:HAVE FUN!!! HUT HUT!!!

Bitch don't tell me what to do!

Anyway, I voted "they're okay". I like GW and all, but there's a LOT of room for improvement. Fixing Forge World's horrendous customer service and being a little more realistic with their prices would be good ways to start. Updated codices for everyone who needs them and lists like LatD, genestealer cult, etc. brought back aren't a bad idea, either.

I'm bored with them. Don't like their prices, and only really enjoy a couple of the SG's having got rather bored with their main 28mm games and aesthetic.

I liked GW back when their employees cared about their product rather than now that it is simply a faceless , increasingly dysfunctional corporation. Games Workshop, the company, took a hobby I enjoyed and turned it into something unrecongniseable. I want them to go away as they are only getting in the way of my enjoyment of the wargaming hobby now.

Eh. They're a company and the bottom line is they are out to make money. Not hard to understand. I do disagree with how they do it though...constantly rising prices on a luxury good is not a smart plan. I know my local GW takes the princely sum of about £35 a day some days...and the shops rent? £55 a day. Not including tax, wages or utility bills. I guess they make up for it on other days, but still...

The problem is they seem to be now making it very clear they care about your money a lot more than they care about you. Of course, that may well have been true for years but it's a very bad idea when your players start feeling like that. The only reason I still play is the hundreds of pounds invested into the hobby and the large part of my social life that revolves around it. Otherwise I'd likely just model and paint.

IP - I really like the universes created by GW although they have not evolved much from 2nd Ed to the present the detail has been added (changed and added again!), but has remained pretty constant, which I also think suits the background and has enabled an old scrot like myself to drift in and out of the hobby as time allows and not get left behind; as apposed to Battletech for example.

Re the current 'hot' discussion about others reproducing GW IP I’m pretty much on the side of the law here (and therefore GW I'm afraid), if you can't afford something that does not give you the right to knock it off, free markets aren’t that free, but I digress.

Cost - I understand why people see the models as expensive, personally I don’t have a problem with the cost of their product (but I my just be more fortunate in my circumstances in that respect) especially when you can get it discounted elsewhere. Ultimately the market sets the price and I don’t see a shortage of GW customers on the High Street or on these or other forums. There are still a number of people however whom continue to purchase GW but resent the company of supplying them, ironic perhaps, certainly an interesting paradox. Addiction anybody?

Quality – I don’t think you can quibble with GW on this (craters aside apparently!). Naturally they do produce some stinkers, but more fool you if you buy them!

General Business Practice - This I can understand, but off loading Dark Heresy and WFRPG I can not. Although FFG are going great guns, I like everyone else it seems never got this decision but it was just another step on a path that saw the sidelining of the Specialist Games and a general disregard of more experienced gamers –disappointing to say the least; I would really like it if GW would license out the specialist games as well although the secret issue of Space Hulk might be light at the end of the tunnel?

Some glowing praise you might be thinking but GW really do exasperate me with the whole “Hobby” thing. Annoying red shirted gimps in their stores is one thing (they know who they are, shame on you!) but the rape of White Dwarf (not literally you understand, that would be wrong) from top quality mag 20 years ago to a “hobby supplement” still really gets my goat. I didn’t mind the dropping of RPG articles and other companies products, there was still plenty of interesting stuff in there back then and even when the editor that called himself Fat Bloke for some reason (sorry I can’t remember his name) turned Whitey into a techni-coloured hippy of a Dwarf it was still worth the cost of an issue. Incidentally some of those issues are still burned into my retina, who knew red could be soooo bright! A hippy Dwarf is one thing a Dwarf in stilettos turning tricks to get you to by the latest Codex is wrong on all sorts of levels!

GW presents: Whore Dwarf - Just say no kids, don't even meet their gaze, there lies the path of damnation!

Ahem, er..... back to work, erm........... sorry.

notprop wrote:A hippy Dwarf is one thing a Dwarf in stilettos turning tricks to get you to by the latest Codex is wrong on all sorts of levels!

And it's probably why the White Dwarf got raped, as you said.

The love is gone, I still like them, but I'd rather go to FLGS these days, whom offer discounts, a friendly discussion platform and more honesty when it comes to things. I'm not talking about the blastscape.

I used to love them to death though, but the staff mostly killed that off for me. Especially when the UK staff was transferred out and more Dutch brown nosers were brought in. I remember buying over €300 worth of metal Guard for my first army and I remember Swan throwing in a few BL books and a Macharius blister for free. Or that crazy Scotsman Andrew, who forgot to ring up my mailorder and when I told him he just laughed madly and waved it off, throwing in a blister for my honesty.

As for Forge World, I love their stuff and I will continue buying from them as they've got quite a hoard of exclusives but 'em for their poor quality, customer services and everything.

I think GW needs to improve themselves. Better value for money (I'm not as nuts about this as many, but...) and better rules writing.

IMO it depends on where you are. My local GW is great, i can go sit in there while mum is shopping the sales or whatever, and chat to the guys in there for hours. Yes there products can seem slightly over priced, but that might be to me as im only 15, so money is not regulary being pumped into me from a source, and with a girlfriend that likes being taken out... well my valk still isnt finished due to the lack of paints i have ;p

meh, i voted like. I believe i like GW because of the staff down the shop, and the atmosphere. They arent money greedy foreigners, theyre simply guys who are enthusiastic about the game and love seeing theyre tanks blow the out of your army!

that maybe just be here though... ?

Jack

Went with "Like".

There would not be such a massive gaming community without GW, but I wish they would introduce a degree of consistency into their releases for at least a two year period (as opposed to a two month period).

The question asks how I feel about GW, not the minis, not the rules but the company.

I have a very dim view of them and their business practices and attitude to their customer base. So I went with burn, I am ever hopeful the company will collapse into the ocean and the copyrights be bought by a more customer focussed and complete hobby driven company.

This is where my popularity skydives :p

I actually quite like GW, but I think that could be because the local stores that I use aren't populated by donkey-caves or bumchums. I admit, sometimes the prices seem a bit WTF? but all in all I'm pretty much sound with them... Now a company I can get on my about is EA, don't even get me started :p

I consider the company more of a hindrance to enjoyable gaming, particularly over the last decade or so.

I voted OK, but I really have to say that there is a lot of bias here both ways. They continue to do stupid things like price jumps and so on, and they never release stuff when they say they will, they don't give a damn about anything any of their potenetial customers wants, but what they DO have is amazing. So it all balances. They're ok.