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There's a lot of angst over which Codices get redone or created next. I wonder, what if GW moved Codices to a formal bounty system:
- each players could purchase a non-refundable Codex pre-order coupon at current prices
- GW works on the Codex with the highest pre-orders
- when GW completes the Codex, the pre-order coupons are redeemed for actual Codices.
- if GW decides they won't do a particular Codex, the pre-order coupons are converted to store credit.

Advantages:
- high transparency is possible for GW and players
- players put their money where their mouths are
- GW sees the money
- it's easy to measure real interest, rather than just talk
- it's all about the cash
- future Codices are pre-paid at current rates, so proof against GW's historical pattern of price increases above inflation
- everybody can pay to play

What say you?

That'd make doing any long-term planning on model production to go along with the codices very difficult. It'd also seem likely to amplify the 'all power armor, all the time' trend that some people complain about, since PA remains the most prolific. Dark Eldar and Inquisition armies would still be dead last, simply owing to the fewer players they have than other factions.

Would we get 8 years worth of interest on that money we put down?

Honestly this would only support GW and their weak codex system. Now they would be receiving cash for doing nothing. Interest may only be a few cents at $30 for us, but when the accumulate god knows how much off this system, theyll be making a fortune for sitting on their asses.

Also, this would only support the SMs even more. CSM are popular, so while it would be good for me, the xenos armies need love too. I vote no.

There's no reason why GW would want to do this, and it would be mostly downsides for them. Why would GW want the hassle of keeping track of that many gift certificates?

I concur too many people (myself included) collect SM therefore every chapter would be clamouring for its own Codex. Not that I agree with collecting fashion armies but they do keep life interesting in the scenario you are suggesting there would be very few new powerful armies.

I vote No

solkan wrote:There's no reason why GW would want to do this, and it would be mostly downsides for them. Why would GW want the hassle of keeping track of that many gift certificates?

Im curious as to what you think the downsides are? I see nothing but good things:

-They receive liquid cash right now that they can use, or they can invest it and let the money grow.
-People who put their money down now may not be in the hobby in a few years, meaning they just made 30 bucks + interest.
-Lost coupons
-Have a sense of demand so they are not over or under supplying their stores.
-Worst case scenario the person uses it as store credit inbetween, but theyre still buying the models at a higher price than they would have before.

The record keeping and customer service overhead just don't seem to be worth it. It's one thing for a local game store to take pre-orders for a game a few weeks before it comes out, but GW has admitted before that codices take one to two years. If a company receives money, it has to keep track of that money. If they don't take care of that money, then people get angry and sue or write nasty letters to chambers of commerce over their missing $30 plus interest. Banks and credit exist so that they don't have to deal with all of that hassle.

On the other side, GW already has a multiple codices and the associated models under develop internally. Why would they want to try to disrupt their internal release schedule subject to what would be public contest? So they get the opportunity to say "We know you want X, but you can't have it for three years because everyone's busy working on R, T and Z?"

I would say an offical poll done by mailings clipped out of a single month of WD. That way there is no money changing hands except for the people buying WDs and they only need an inter to open the letters and enter the answers into an excel spread sheet.

Why does GW have to give you a coupon... GW should just sell votes. Pay $5 you get a vote for what the next codex will be. If some one really wants to see an army done they can pay for 500 votes. Maybe tie in to some sort of a skull points type system so people don't feel like they wasted as much money, and GW isn't neccesarily obliged to gurantee an end product by a particular time.

hmm.... this COULD be a cool concept. But at the same time, I think it wouldnt really work. Because all they will see is what we already know. SPACE MARINES are the best lol. So we will continue to get a boat load of new codices for them, and everyone else will be left in the dust

Bookwrack wrote:That'd make doing any long-term planning on model production to go along with the codices very difficult.

Dark Eldar and Inquisition armies would still be dead last, simply owing to the fewer players they have than other factions.

How so? The key point is that the Codex work is pre-funded - if lots of people want Ad Mech, and they pay for the Codex to be written, then GW writes it. Also, that GW can control what Codex coupons they sell.

If that's the case, then nothing changes from today, aside from GW knowing just how insignificant the DE and Inq player base really is compared with the amount of hot air and vitriol that appears on the Intarwebz.
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Night Lords wrote:Would we get 8 years worth of interest on that money we put down?

Interest may only be a few cents at $30 for us, but when the accumulate god knows how much off this system, theyll be making a fortune for sitting on their asses.

Also, this would only support the SMs even more. CSM are popular, so while it would be good for me, the xenos armies need love too. I vote no.

You should be thankful that GW doesn't charge a monthly fee like most gift cards and banks do (where permitted by law). Besides, when Codices go from $25 to $30, that's a 20% return on the money down, way better than what you'd get at most banks (2%)

I hardly think GW would make a "fortune" here. So the problem is that popular armies would get Codices? Oh, noes!
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Ed_Bodger wrote:I concur too many people (myself included) collect SM therefore every chapter would be clamouring for its own Codex.

And why is that a problem? SW soldiered on for a decade with their Codex, and the DE are doing just fine with their 2003 update. There's nothing actually wrong with the DH Codex, nor the WH Codex that warrants change for the sake of change.
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solkan wrote:The record keeping and customer service overhead just don't seem to be worth it.

Why would they want to try to disrupt their internal release schedule subject to what would be public contest? So they get the opportunity to say "We know you want X, but you can't have it for three years because everyone's busy working on R, T and Z?"

GW is selling the Codices at full retail (minus shipping), and the whole thing is automated. It's effectively FREE.

It's no disruption to the schedule, as GW makes the coupons available. And if everybody wants X, then GW will be more likely to provide it, rather than R / T / Z that nobody has interest in.
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Pipboy101 wrote:I would say an offical poll done by mailings clipped out of a single month of WD.

Talk is cheap, and such polling would be meaningless. GW is a "pay to play" company, so players shouldn't forget that. OTOH, slap on a $10 "processing" fee, and that'd work.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

aka_mythos wrote:GW should just sell votes. Pay $5 you get a vote for what the next codex will be.

Well, that would be even better, but I thought that would just be too obvious...

Sorry, it's a dumb idea. Nobody would pay now and receive no benefit in the future. 30 bucks today has more value than 30 bucks in the future, so no, youre not making 5 dollars, and youre still losing out on an opportunity to spend that money now.

Theres a reason why amazon gives you discounts for preordering. Theres reasons why Eb Games asks you to preorder, but gives you something in return.

Why would they allow preorders if it didnt help them make money? You would be very, very wrong to say otherwise.

And that is why you wouldn't have to participate in Cash for Codices.

No...that's why GW wouldnt participate in cash for codices...

Huh? There's no downside for GW, aside from having to actually provide the Codex (at cost) upon completion.

If there is, perhaps, you can do a better job of explaining?

Perhaps you should read the other posts in this thread and put a little more effort into comprehending the issues they raise, such as below.

Bookwrack wrote:That'd make doing any long-term planning on model production to go along with the codices very difficult. It'd also seem likely to amplify the 'all power armor, all the time' trend that some people complain about, since PA remains the most prolific. Dark Eldar and Inquisition armies would still be dead last, simply owing to the fewer players they have than other factions.

JohnHwangDD wrote:If that's the case, then nothing changes from today, aside from GW knowing just how insignificant the DE and Inq player base really is compared with the amount of hot air and vitriol that appears on the Intarwebz.

Right, so you want all space marines all the time. Good to know. You also have zero concept of logistics and paperwork required for doing something like this. Then again, three years after you shell out money for your codex, there will be plenty of pissing and moaning about GW's lousy customer support because coupons have gone missing, data has been misplaced, and people who paid for the product three years previous aren't getting it. Oh wait, that's not just a customer support issue, that's a legal one. Hmm...

No, I don't want all Spaz Marinz all the time.

Maybe *you* should read my posts and try to comprehend what I am actually saying.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's a bad idea, nor does the fact that I disagree with you mean that I don't comprehend you. It merely means that I disagree with you on how things might go forward.

If people were to actually (stupidly) participate in this, it would be great for them as i said above.

However, in reality people are not going to put money down on something that doesnt even exist, nor has a contract. You might as well call it the GW donation fund where you "may" receive a free codex of your choice at sometime in the far future.

The downside is this program will still cost money for them to establish. It will still take time and effort, as little as it may be, to design and print coupons, keep track of purchases, train staff into asking you to do this everytime you buy something, etc.

In order for this to be successful and worth the time and money, they would have to rely on sheer volume on orders. 1 odd customer here and there wont do. Seeing as how I believe youre the only one in this topic that agrees with this in an already warhammer "hardcore" environment, I think it's safe to say there is no market for this program.

Then you move into other adverse effects such as those people that put their 30 dollar vote down and still get no mention of that particular codex becoming unsatisfied. The program is also a long term commitment that they will have to keep track of for years until atleast 1 of every codex comes out...all for only a few people.

Yea, not worth it from a business standpoint.

And you've presented a very poorly though out idea on how to proceed.

There are ways GW could mitigate the Spaze Marine extravaganza... they could just make the ballot have one space marine chapter... one that few people would want... I was going to say Rainbow Warriors, but people would find that too funny and would want that... so I guess something else.

@NL: If GW gives a half-dozen options, of things that are in-process, then how is that a problem for them? It's not like GW would be taking random orders.
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@Bookwrack: if you have nothing intelligent to contribute, then perhaps you shouldn't.
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@aka: exactly right. The oldest 2 SM Codices would be BA and BT, so either of those could be the options. Or GW could put down Chaos Legions for the screaming baldie slot.

@Bookwrack: if you have nothing intelligent to contribute, then perhaps you shouldn't.

It seems like you're setting up an argument for why this thread should never have existed in the first place.

Your ideas fails at a business level, they fail at a logistical level, they fail at a player support level. Not a single one of you 'advantages' holds up to the least bit of scrutiny. Seriously, it's a terrible idea all the way through.

1st off, since half of GW's sales are power armor driven, you're looking at all space marines all the time. Unless of course, they artificially restrict the next selections which of course is going to go over beautifully with, say, Dark Angels players, when they see that the only PA choice available is Rainbow Warriors. If they have a firm enough schedule that they can list the next half-dozen releases, than what does it really matter what order they're coming in? They're already in the pipeline.

Alright then, so instead codex release will be dictated by how much money each faction gets for every codex currently out there. Again, power armor dominates, so while all the marines go to the front of the line, everyone who wanted something else gets to find out how many years they get to twist in the breeze for. "Sorry Mr. Nid player, but the fans have spoken. You'll get to see a return on your $30 in six years. BTW, don't lose that receipt!"

What about people who enjoy having multiple armies? If someone plays DE, Eldar, Necrons, and Tau, are you expecting them to pay out $120 years upfront of actually getting their books, all the while knowing that barring some bizarre quirk of fate they're going to be going well behind Marines?

So then, if I understand you correctly, GW really is doing everything correctly. Limiting SMs to one per year (despite being half of sales), controlling the development cycle to incorporate the occasional slower seller, Mystery Boxes, etc. ultimately works to the player's benefit.

As someone who enjoys multiple armies, but has less time, I have no problem waiting years and years. But if I could put down a marker towards Ad Mech to encourage that coming to fruition, why is that a bad thing?

And if you look at the "committed order" system driving Wargames Factory deelopment, why is it good to do this for 3rd party minis, when it's not good for GW Codices?

i voted no but don't agree with the snarky bit after it in the poll. they don't know best and their policies (like being secretive about future release) annoy the heck out of me. that being said, i'm not going to pre-pre-order (with no release date available since your idea is to have them determined AFTER putting the money down). you would give them your $25-$30 USD interest free on the CHANCE that they may make your codex in the next year??? how often would they have to close the polls to determine a winner? would they take votes for 6 months, then publish it a year later? they need that much time to make the appropriate models and (to a lesser extent) the rules for all the releases. i don't preorder video games and i wouldn't do it for tabletop games either (at least not more than a month or two from actual release).

Here's an idea:
Release a special plastic model for each army, and announce that whichever one sells best will get a new codex, and if you don't get a new codex, You get a new model for your army!
Everyone wins!

Not to mention some armies DESPERATELY need a few new additions to their model lines. Maybe a plastic canonness, a plastic destroyer lord, a plastic daemonhunters inquisitor in terminator armour, a plastic archon, etc.

Plastic Cannonness? How about starting with plastic SoB?!?

But based on the success of the Mystery Box, I could see GW selling "Limited Edition" metal figs - first fig to sell out gets a new Codex...

Only problem I see with a voting or that pre order system is htere would be a new marine codex every time a good sized group of people think a unit is either over powered under powered or jsut plain useless.

I've hearrd that about 90% of 40k players play some sort of space marines.

I think if this system was insituted chaos would always be the next codex..

I voted Cupcakes (what?)

So why not just leave Space Marines out of the voting system? Or omit whatever books are in the next 2 or 3 year release schedule?

They could put out these "voted" books while working on the current releases, or what they already have scheduled. I think the idea has potential, it might be a bit of a massive undertaking at first, but I'm sure once the kinks got worked out, it'd make for a fun system for the players and rewarding idea for GW. Its free money to them (either through pre-sales, vote sales) or could be used as motivation for other things (spend $50-$100 in the online store and get a vote).

Like I said, it may sound clumsy and weird.. But I think if GW wrapped themselves around the idea, it'd be pretty cool.