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i had this discussion at my local gw and was wondering if any dakka members had any insight into how manny people actually play warhammer.

Hmmmm the question is kind of generalized and hard to answer... Are you asking us a yes or no I play warhammer... how many people do you know that play warhammer... etc etc...

To attempt and answer the question: I play warhammer and know many people who do... It seems in the US more and more people play 40k... especially the teens and younger. And even those who DO play fantasy... also play 40k and tend to do so more. Ive heard that on the other side of the world alot more people play fantasy.

I also noticed when theres 40k events (doesnt matter how stupid they are) plenty of people come and its A)Alot of fun. B) Horribly crowded and no fun. On contrary when theres a fantasy event (doesnt matter how cool it is) we seem to get very few people at all... this may also be due to teens being into 40k and you tend to see them monstly at the lame 40k events...

I personally like fantasy better then 40k, and I wish more people played it where I live but its all good... hope I answered your question

sorry i meant both fantasy and 40k

idk but i guess something around 1 maybe 2 million people....i mean the states and china play so theres a lot of people involved...

I play both Fantasy and 40k.

Both are great games, though both have their flaws.

Ah ok... I get your question now... sorry about my rather off topic answer then hehe... Im not too sure how many people actually play "GW Games" but I would assume quite a few. Considering we always have at least a couple thousand viewers on dakka and who knows how many on other sites... I would assume ALOT of people play "GW Games"

12 people play. The rest just read the books and talk about it.

Trying to get back into it (see my sig), but progress is slow

I'd like to know the answer too.

I'd also like to know what percentage of GW models in existence are painted?
My guess is less than 0.1%

Its a completely uncalculable number. Obviously GW can gain a handle on the volume of products they sell, but that information is not in the public domain, and in addition management insiders (or rather former management insiders) have revealed that they really do not have a clue who they sell them to. They have no idea whether their models are bought by painters, gamers, teenagers who have been never played yet, or grumpy old grognards who have been playing for decades. They don't collect that information.

And then add in the factor that customers =/= players. People by to paint or collect, or to sit in a drawer gathering dust. And people play without buying any new GW product.

It is an unanswerable question.

The only clear answer we can know for sure (because it is clear from their published turnover figures from their annual accounts) is that however many there are, they are buying less product now than they did back in 2001. Volume sales of 40k and WFB have fallen every year since then.

Osbad wrote:The only clear answer we can know for sure (because it is clear from their published turnover figures from their annual accounts) is that however many there are, they are buying less product now than they did back in 2001. Volume sales of 40k and WFB have fallen every year since then.

Funny that the Playstation 2 was released in 2000 and X-Box in 2001 isn't it???

Undoubtedly the rise in console gaming has had something to do with it. As has their continual higher-than-RPI price rises. And the lack of attention and massive self-indulgence with the rules (the way 40k 3rd ed was handled was rubbish, and 4th edition was pretty much a lacklustre sticking-plaster over the problem). Also the rise of significant competition from other gaming companies - PP has unarguably attracted a lot of custom that otherwise may have ended up in GW's pockets. In general the rise of the internet has also (arguably) been of harm to GW as they have singuilarly failed to harness its potential and lost ground to smaller, more nimble companies who have leveraged the cheap window on the world to better advantage.

There are multiple reasons why WFB and 40k sales volumes haven't improved any over the last 8 years. While Kirby for years has stuck his fingers in his ears and shouted "its not my fault, its the kids and those evil computer games", the reality is many of the issues that have impacted GW's sales volumes are well within their control. They have just made some very poor (and some good) decisions and tilted at the wrong windmills in many cases. Their biggest single fault (in my humble opinion) has been to take their customer base for granted and assume they are somehow "locked in" to purchasing from GW come what may. That their 40k/WFB customer base was ebbing away from them was masked for a couple of years by phenomenal LotR sales and that it took them 4 years to realise what was going on and do anything about it (5th edition) says more about their lousy "yes-man" management culture than about the competition.

Let's not forget the people that buy the miniatures but never play. If you come to think about it they are a large part of the demographic.