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The arguments go back and forth, here and elsewhere on the web.

Apologists v Haters, price hikes, GW's latest direction or PP's newest idea, the discussions often include this or something similar...

'But the opinions of a few forum users' or 'the small minority of gamers who frequent forums', etc etc.

Given the fairly small amount of players of wargames in the greater population, given the international communities that forums provide for people to be in communication with likeminded folks, given word of mouth, given the vast lurker vs poster ratio, given the leaks and the attraction of obtaining news and rumour before the employees do...

Can this argument be valid? I'd suggest that given the small number of people that play the games and the likelihood of the player/consumer type also being fairly computer and internet literate, far more are using the forums, if only for browsing and getting their news, than that oft touted defence allows for.

The forum user tends to be move focused on the overall product line. They are the "hardcore" players, while the non-users can be considered the "casual" players.

Even saying that, what is said on the forums isn't a minority if it constantly shows up. People on the forums talk to others, and others talk to them. Information is traded.

You can't argue what shows up on the forums is the minority, not everyone will speak up after all if there is a problem or something they don't like. They may grumble, but most don't go on a crusade about it.

Considering that most of the whining is done on this site by 2 - 3 dozen people are most. You're not a "minority" you're an "endangered species".

There are a few people at my local gW that regularly grumble about prices, while they're being rung up for another $200 in models.

I know a bunch of players in person. Im from a non Europe /United States of (North) America /Oceania country. All people i know that play the game, frequent foruns and blogs.

Not all of them post their oppinions.

Due to the small scale of the hobby, i find it pretty hard to believe that there is hoobists who dont make casual use of foruns.

GW have 30.000 likes in face book... how much members the "big" foruns have?

Worglock wrote:Considering that most of the whining is done on this site by 2 - 3 dozen people are most. You're not a "minority" you're an "endangered species".

There are a few people at my local gW that regularly grumble about prices, while they're being rung up for another $200 in models.

Thank you for your considered input to this discussion.

Welcome to ignore.

The number of GW customers appears to be decreasing.

GW needs to do something to increase the number of customers.

The forum crowd provides feedback to GW.

The non-forum crowd doesn't provide feedback to GW.

Fringe or not, for a company to ignore customer feedback is silly.

Worglock wrote:Considering that most of the whining is done on this site by 2 - 3 dozen people are most. You're not a "minority" you're an "endangered species".

QFT. I know babies that don't cry as much as some people on here. As with life its the 10 people in the crowd that puff up their chests and cry bloody murder that get all the attention and become 'what everyone thinks'.

biccat wrote:The number of GW customers appears to be decreasing.

GW needs to do something to increase the number of customers.

The forum crowd provides feedback to GW.

The non-forum crowd doesn't provide feedback to GW.

Fringe or not, for a company to ignore customer feedback is silly.

And yet, the attitude of the company seems to allude to antagonism towards forums and the internet in general. I have been told by a couple of GW employees I know that the high ups have forbidden employees from commenting on forums or contributing to them and that senior management regards the forums as openly hostile and rather than seek to understand why or win over or gain any improvement from that feedback, they choose instead to turn their back and ignore them in the hopes they will go away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Luco wrote:

Worglock wrote:Considering that most of the whining is done on this site by 2 - 3 dozen people are most. You're not a "minority" you're an "endangered species".

QFT. I know babies that don't cry as much as some people on here. As with life its the 10 people in the crowd that puff up their chests and cry bloody murder that get all the attention and become 'what everyone thinks'.

This is pointless flamebait and if I were a more cynical bastard, I might imagine you're seeking to derail the thread.

Who gets heard on forums was not the subject of this thread, whether or not they are only used by a minority is what I asked of the floor.

Improve your reading comprehension and wind your neck in.

biccat wrote:

GW needs to do something to increase the number of customers.

Releasing Dawn of war and the Space Marine game is managing that pretty well.


The overall problem is as a company, they can't just listen to one guy with a blog post, or that one guy who posts all the time on a forum. True, he may know what he's talking about, but you can't just go to a company meeting and say "Dis one guy sayz wez needz ta lower ourz pricez you gitz!"

juraigamer wrote:

biccat wrote:GW needs to do something to increase the number of customers.

Releasing Dawn of war and the Space Marine game is managing that pretty well.

Really? Has GW seen a sales spike in miniatures after these games, or are the stories merely anecdotal?

juraigamer wrote:The overall problem is as a company, they can't just listen to one guy with a blog post, or that one guy who posts all the time on a forum. True, he may know what he's talking about, but you can't just go to a company meeting and say "Dis one guy sayz wez needz ta lower ourz pricez you gitz!"

No, but they can watch for general trends. If a lot of people are complaining about finecast quality, you might want to start doing some quality control at the distribution centers. If a lot of people start posting questions about how rule X works, you might want to include it in your next FAQ.

And if someone writes a very insightful and persuasive blog post about GW's prices, you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:And yet, the attitude of the company seems to allude to antagonism towards forums and the internet in general.

We'll see how well this strategy works for them.

If only there were some other company that uses the internet well that we could compare them to...

Please give a thought to courtesy in your posts. Calling people with different opinions whiny babies is not productive posting and may very well get your account suspended as a violation of Rule Number One. I'll also say, as a simple observation, that labeling others crybabies doesn't make the namecaller seem any more "adult" than his targets.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Luco wrote:

Worglock wrote:Considering that most of the whining is done on this site by 2 - 3 dozen people are most. You're not a "minority" you're an "endangered species".

QFT. I know babies that don't cry as much as some people on here. As with life its the 10 people in the crowd that puff up their chests and cry bloody murder that get all the attention and become 'what everyone thinks'.

This is pointless flamebait and if I were a more cynical bastard, I might imagine you're seeking to derail the thread.

Who gets heard on forums was not the subject of this thread, whether or not they are only used by a minority is what I asked of the floor.

Improve your reading comprehension and wind your neck in.

I'm sorry my metaphor offends you. I've never tried to derail a thread and am not starting now.

Manchu wrote:Please give a thought to courtesy in your posts. Calling people with different opinions whiny babies is not productive posting and may very well get your account suspended as a violation of Rule Number One. I'll also say, as a simple observation, that labeling others crybabies doesn't make the namecaller seem any more "adult" than his targets.

But as always, getting offended by an opinion that digresses from yours is expected and encouraged.

Edit: It also kind of proves my point. So carry on!

Luco wrote:
QFT. I know babies that don't cry as much as some people on here. As with life its the 10 people in the crowd that puff up their chests and cry bloody murder that get all the attention and become 'what everyone thinks'.

This is pointless flamebait and if I were a more cynical bastard, I might imagine you're seeking to derail the thread.

Who gets heard on forums was not the subject of this thread, whether or not they are only used by a minority is what I asked of the floor.

Improve your reading comprehension and wind your neck in.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
'But the opinions of a few forum users' or 'the small minority of gamers who frequent forums', etc etc.

I think this can be held as a valid argument, but only if we compare it to the war-gaming community at large.

Compared to the wargaming community as a whole, those who actively post of forums represent a small sub-set of the gaming community (I know many gamers who do not visit forums, except to read the rumourmills)

Take for instance the following 2 examples.

The GW sales embargo:
If we were to take this forum's opinion on the subject, and present it to GW as customer feedback, they would have been presented with a very negative opinion of the subject. However IRL, the wargaming community seemed largely ambivalent to the subject, so long as their own supply of plastic crack remained uninterrupted (for instance, many on the forums swore never to buy GW products again, but many real-world people I knew just carried on as normal).

The Grey Knights Codex:
On release we were inundated with threads complaining about cheese, imbalance, poor fluff, complaints, moans and grizzling galore about the new GKs, which should have been seen as negative feedback by GW and they should have been considered a failure, however, according to the most concrete of feedback (i.e. money in wallets) GKs were a resounding success.


That is of course not to say that they should ignore our ranting, but active and opinion forming/supporting posters are a minority in the gaming community, perhaps if GW did serious market research (like asking us to fill out a little questionnaire when anyone made a purchase in-store) the opinions of forum users would actually filter through to the people that should see it. But this is GW, who at present answer only to shareholders, and so (as we've seen from current decisions) must be appeased, regardless of the opinions of a small crowd of scattered individuals who happen to have a mutual discussion space.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be heard, but we are a quiet voice in a much bigger crowd...



Within the forum structure itself, the number of those that form or support an opinion are an even smaller group again. To say that 'a small number of forum posters' represent the opinion of a forum at large is completely senseless. You cannot judge the opinion of a forum by it's most discussed topic (especially considering the likelyhood of trolling and flaming). Again referring to the GK example, we had many posts having a good old grumble, but many more so discussing lists, models, tactics etc in a much more positive light. It just happens to be that the loudest voices tend to be taken as the opinion of a forum as a whole, and only by asking every user their opinion could we ever derive the correct overall opinion. Of course, this means that a forum is 'assigned' an opinion by outsiders, if not because the forum believes something, but more because the loudest voices come at the top of the list on google...



So looking at it from an observers perspective, the 'small number' of forum posters are just those that shout the most, and those who choose to remain at a more tolerable volume tend to get forgotten, despite the quiet masses being painted with the same basecoat, highlight & wash. So while we are a small minority, the representation of that minority is created by an even smaller one...

Cottonjaw wrote:

I think you're looking for flamebait MGS. He wasn't specifying you, or anyone else, merely that some people in the Dakkamunity are definitely "complainers" rather than "criticizers" and they are particularly loud about it (figuratively, of course). Amongst the supposed "Vocal Minority" there is definitely a "Particularly vocal few".

All that aside, I think the forums as a whole represent extremes on both ends of the spectrum. I think the forum posters, in general, represent a vocal minority on both extremes of any of the latest "politics" of wargaming. Aside from that, dakka has a massive population of 100-200 post-per-year users that mainly just read along and check out what's new / eye candy in the P&M sections, these people more than likely run the gamut from new hobbyists, hardened price hike hating veterans and hardcore fanboys alike.

All in all I think forums are only utilized by a minority of persons. Since becoming more active on dakka I've often asked people "Oh hey are you on dakka?" or reference a thread on dakkadakka, and you know what? Only 1 or 2 of my friends even has an account for a forum (both happen to be dakkanauts) and neither of them is very active.

Doing a little more than looking in my opinion. But I'm a dirty fanboy.

People are aware of the forum locally. Few have accounts, it's mostly an occasional topic of what that dregs of the hobby are up to.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:The arguments go back and forth, here and elsewhere on the web.

Apologists v Haters, price hikes, GW's latest direction or PP's newest idea, the discussions often include this or something similar...

'But the opinions of a few forum users' or 'the small minority of gamers who frequent forums', etc etc.

Given the fairly small amount of players of wargames in the greater population, given the international communities that forums provide for people to be in communication with likeminded folks, given word of mouth, given the vast lurker vs poster ratio, given the leaks and the attraction of obtaining news and rumour before the employees do...

Can this argument be valid? I'd suggest that given the small number of people that play the games and the likelihood of the player/consumer type also being fairly computer and internet literate, far more are using the forums, if only for browsing and getting their news, than that oft touted defence allows for.

To be fair how can we tell how many of the 50,000 or so registered members are getting something out of their DakkaDakka or other electronic experience? How can we determine use?

We cannot know everyones opinion as the majority do not or will not post their 'opinions' so it is left to the minority to voice theirs. It may also be the case that the 'silent majority' do spread the word they hear from the forums into the wider world, but we have no way for knowing for sure.

Maybe the silent majority find their questions asked and answered by the more vocal minority? The minority unofficially speak for the majority?

Mr. Burning wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:The arguments go back and forth, here and elsewhere on the web.

Apologists v Haters, price hikes, GW's latest direction or PP's newest idea, the discussions often include this or something similar...

'But the opinions of a few forum users' or 'the small minority of gamers who frequent forums', etc etc.

Given the fairly small amount of players of wargames in the greater population, given the international communities that forums provide for people to be in communication with likeminded folks, given word of mouth, given the vast lurker vs poster ratio, given the leaks and the attraction of obtaining news and rumour before the employees do...

Can this argument be valid? I'd suggest that given the small number of people that play the games and the likelihood of the player/consumer type also being fairly computer and internet literate, far more are using the forums, if only for browsing and getting their news, than that oft touted defence allows for.

To be fair how can we tell how many of the 50,000 or so registered members are getting something out of their DakkaDakka or other electronic experience? How can we determine use?

We cannot know everyones opinion as the majority do not or will not post their 'opinions' so it is left to the minority to voice theirs. It may also be the case that the 'silent majority' do spread the word they hear from the forums into the wider world, but we have no way for knowing for sure.

Maybe the silent majority find their questions asked and answered by the more vocal minority? The minority unofficially speak for the majority?

If that minority truly did speak for the majority, wouldn't their (the minority) dream of a dead GW already have come to pass?

(and there wouldn't be a Dakka or half of the other sites anymore and even fewer people would be in the miniature game hobby. But, they won't get that point until they get what they want.)

I can tell Mr Burning, based on the stats and analytics we perform.

In answer to your question, MGS, I estimate that dakka alone reaches up to 1/4 of all wargamers on the planet. The registered to guest ratio is huge, but I dont have the figures to hand right now. Either way, I would estimate people who actually post on forums to be somewhere in the 1-3% of wargamers region, and that includes people who post once every few months as well as frequent posters.

So about 0.0025-0.0075% of worldwide wargamers post on forums, but their opinions are heard by around 25% (more so in English speaking countries, and even more so by secondary word of mouth).

Worglock is not wrong either in that a few dozen people drive a lot of the more negative conversations. That's not to say they are wrong or whining, just that the total number of people who drive the more anti-gw discussions is very small in the grand scheme of things.

legoburner wrote:

Worglock is not wrong either in that a few dozen people drive a lot of the more negative conversations. That's not to say they are wrong or whining, just that the total number of people who drive the more anti-gw discussions is very small in the grand scheme of things.

Will I get in trouble if I turn that into "the best of the worst of semi-out of context signatures"?

I've never met anyone else who was a GW games player in real life that is aware of of this site nor any other non-official GW focused site that wasn't someone's personal blog/gallery.

Certainly, that isn't a very large number of people (hundredish), but that is my experience.

Tabletop Wargaming in my view is a community. A small community but still a community(when taking the general populace into consideration it's small). In my experience word of mouth is HUGE when it comes to communities. Which is why I find it amusing that GW would forbid employees to post on forums or interact with the internet community. If anything you WANT the internet community on your side. People are much more likely to follow the negative opinions on a company than the positive opinions. It seems to be human nature to do so. It doesn't help that GW is the biggest fish in the sea or the "corporate" gaming company. Everyone seems to think it's cool to hate the big guy and support the little guy.

If you ask me how Fringe we are, I would say we aren't fringe at all. I believe that our small community reflects a lot of the feelings that the majority of GW gamers have. This is due to the diverse community here on Dakka. Members from around the globe post here and I would say that the majority feel the same way on the recent changes with GW. There will always be people who buy GW products but I believe those numbers are dwindling. Many of those numbers are coming from the Vet GW players.

All that being said I am not buying GW products myself anymore. I have more than enough models to play Warhammer 40k and I gave up on Warhammer Fantasy some time ago. I still play 40k, but I use what I have or trade for anything I consider worthwhile. I have been dipping my toes into other games and I like what I see so far. GW really hasn't offered much for me over the past few years other than codex creep and price increases.

This is all my opinion though. I could be wrong.

I think that the "feedback" given by DakkaDakka is mostly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. While a very large portion of wargamers visit forums, a much smaller portion ever post. Now, subtract from that the crowd that only really looks at the P&M forums or only sticks to topics discussing Tactics, Rules, Background, etc. You're left with a relatively small group of people who are voicing their opinions.

I'm sure GW is aware of the various online forums and reads them occasionally. We've seen them take a much more serious approach to the FAQs, and they've been addressing the very issues that result in endless debates here.

But, for things like prices, I'm sure they've put much more thought into it than any of us have. They aren't just arbitrarily increasing prices. They're increasing prices with the full knowledge that it will hurt sales, but they believe the increased prices will make up for that and they'll see profits go up. No amount of complaining or threatening to boycott will change that.

As for Finecast, I honestly suspect they're just having a few production issues getting it up and running. I'm sure QA is all over it and things will improve with time.

Leigen_Zero wrote:
The Grey Knights Codex:
On release we were inundated with threads complaining about cheese, imbalance, poor fluff, complaints, moans and grizzling galore about the new GKs, which should have been seen as negative feedback by GW, however, considering the vast quantities of sales of the GK codex and kits, I sincerely doubt that GW had a quick browse of Dakka, then promptly muttered 'we have failed...' before taking the cyanide pills secreted in their dice tins. According to the most concrete of feedback (i.e. money in wallets) GKs were a resounding success.

The other part of the problem is that people will relentlessly complain and flip out over anything. The latest codex is always the MOST overpowered cheezy thing on earth, even when it's not, and Mat Ward is always the WORST writer on earth and deserves to be FIRED!!!1 even when he's not, and doesn't.

I feel, and this might just be the Internet effect, but I feel like there is this attitude in the forums that everything has to be hyperbolic and blown out of proportion. The only things I can think of that have even felt like legitimate bitches to make were the Failcast lauch and the Austrailia debacle. And the first was largely mitigated due to accepting returns, and from what I can tell, quality control HAS improved.

I do have to say I agree with Cotton as far as feeling as though you were looking to be overly sensitive about the responses received, MGS.

Grakmar wrote:
As for Finecast, I honestly suspect they're just having a few production issues getting it up and running. I'm sure QA is all over it and things will improve with time.

I agree on Finecast. GW does produce the best plastics out there, and in time the Finecast models will be at the quality of the plastics.

daedalus wrote:

Leigen_Zero wrote:
The Grey Knights Codex:
On release we were inundated with threads complaining about cheese, imbalance, poor fluff, complaints, moans and grizzling galore about the new GKs, which should have been seen as negative feedback by GW, however, considering the vast quantities of sales of the GK codex and kits, I sincerely doubt that GW had a quick browse of Dakka, then promptly muttered 'we have failed...' before taking the cyanide pills secreted in their dice tins. According to the most concrete of feedback (i.e. money in wallets) GKs were a resounding success.

The other part of the problem is that people will relentlessly complain and flip out over anything. The latest codex is always the MOST overpowered cheezy thing on earth, even when it's not, and Mat Ward is always the WORST writer on earth and deserves to be FIRED!!!1 even when he's not, and doesn't.

Well. Mat Ward may still need to be fired unless he makes Chaos Space Marines awesome.

Since I posted in a thread earlier about us being the minority I best justify myself!

The posters on here are the majority of tournament players. They know each other, they've played against each other and they have a similar understanding of the hobby and the company. Such an understanding can often produce a misunderstanding when it comes to the overall picture; "Everyone I speak to is aware and in agreement" but outside of the 'scene' how many still step foot in a GW store?

If I were to 'rank' GW sales I'd list them accordingly:

- 10-14 year old kids (How many times on eBay have I read "Unwanted Christmas present, he now wants space wolves; contents partly assembled)
- Casual gamer
- Tournament player
- Collector/Painter

Now how many of them would frequent a forum? Or more to the point how many 12 year old kids actually care about the sales embargo?

As for the point about gossip doing the rounds? I'm sure it does but let's be frank, we've had no pictures or depth of knowledge on Dakka and anything they hear of 'fantasy naval game' they could have gleamed from picking up a WD.

Should GW listen to the forums? Yes, of course they should. Can they? Well that's difficult, I hardly see anything constructively posted that a company can look at objectively and not write off as the rantings and flame wars.

I also hate this idea of "Apologists v Haters". Yes there are those who take a very narrow minded view but I'd love to think there are many of us whom are in neither camp. Do I like GW's product, background, game and miniatures? For the most part yes. Do I like the company's strategy and pricing? No. Can I understand some of the decisions? Yes, although there are those like any company that baffle me.

Worglock wrote:

Manchu wrote:Please give a thought to courtesy in your posts. Calling people with different opinions whiny babies is not productive posting and may very well get your account suspended as a violation of Rule Number One. I'll also say, as a simple observation, that labeling others crybabies doesn't make the namecaller seem any more "adult" than his targets.

But as always, getting offended by an opinion that digresses from yours is expected and encouraged.

Between this post and your continued trolling of this thread, I don't think you sufficiently understand our rules here. Please take some time to review them more closely.

From a statistical stand point you can not say if the internet community is a good sample size, as you don't know the total number of gamers either in a certain country or the world as a whole.

Manchu wrote:

Worglock wrote:

Manchu wrote:Please give a thought to courtesy in your posts. Calling people with different opinions whiny babies is not productive posting and may very well get your account suspended as a violation of Rule Number One. I'll also say, as a simple observation, that labeling others crybabies doesn't make the namecaller seem any more "adult" than his targets.

But as always, getting offended by an opinion that digresses from yours is expected and encouraged.

Between this post and your continued trolling of this thread, I don't think you sufficiently understand our rules here. Please take some time to review them more closely.

I don't think Worglock has been "trolling" this thread at all. Actually, he's one of the few to actually answer the OP's question. He has not used any harsh language, has not called anyone names, and has stayed on topic.

I think maybe everyone needs to take a step back, not get so emotionally invested in their threads, and review the rules themselves.