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This aimed mainly at US and overseas users.
I only realised how popular GW and its products were (especially in the US) when i joined Dakka, until then i thought it was a mainly UK operation, but with shops dotted around in other countries, mainly europe.

This got me thinking.
My questions are how long ago did it start to get popular in your country?
and
Do you feel like it is a 'foreign' product, i.e does GW feel british in anyway, and is there any disadvantages to being a customer of a UK based company?

Oh hell yeah it feels foreign.

Backwards countries who can't figure out that a Metric system is far superior. ARG.

I first noticed it about 12years ago, but I know I've talked to others in my FLGS that have said they've been playing for around 20 I think and hear them mention Rogue Trader, so I assume it's been here for a while.

It really wasn't that well known until Dawn of War came out, then it became a bit more "mainstream" but a lot of people I talk to about the game either know nothing of the table top or just know the very basics never having seen it in person. Most people around here still know nothing about Warhammer or GW in general, or wargaming in general actually.

Doesn't feel especially foreign to me since I purchase the majority of my models local, but we also don't have a GW store in my entire state (last I checked) and the local stores have always had tons of variety in games and what not so it just sort of fit in with that.

I think the closest I've ever been to it being foreign would be cruising FW because the prices are in GBP, but it's really only a after thought.

Barrington wrote:This aimed mainly at US and overseas users.
I only realised how popular GW and its products were (especially in the US) when i joined Dakka, until then i thought it was a mainly UK operation, but with shops dotted around in other countries, mainly europe.

This got me thinking.
My questions are how long ago did it start to get popular in your country?
and
Do you feel like it is a 'foreign' product, i.e does GW feel british in anyway, and is there any disadvantages to being a customer of a UK based company?

It seems to go through stints here in the Inland Northwest. We used to have a GT over in Seattle, for example, but it died a horrible, horrible death for some reason about 10 years ago.

And yes, it feels like a foreign product. Primarily because of the writing styles used IMO, but also because I can't see an american company pulling the "marine codex" crap GW does. They would be frightened of getting called out on having half of every other codex being blatently reprinted material from the basic marine codex. We do tend to bitch about stuff like that quite a bit louder than you do across the pond for some reason.

Disadvantages? Yeah. When GW releases a new marine codex and I get pissed at them, choking one of their devs untill he turns ultramarine blue costs me a plane ticket. I mean...GW doesn't seem to care very much about complaints leveled by their European players...much less their american ones. Ausie? Oh god I feel sorry for them.

Sometimes I wish an American company would make a game good enough to directly compete with GW. Show you guys how things should be done Too bad there's just not enough money in this market for another big competitor.

Hmmm interesting. It does seem that you have got to be quite passionate about the hobby if you live elsewhere, especially if you haven't got a local shop to pop into.

I know it's been popular here for a while. Up until last Decemeber there was a GW store 10 minutes from my house, which had been there since at least the year 2000. I don't really see it Warhammer as 'foreign', but then again there isn't much I see as 'foreign'. Here in Canada we have a lot of American, German, and Asian cars on the road, many people have home theater systems that are designed by American or Japanese companies, so we tend to import a lot of finished goods into our country.

This is a cool topic.

I'm from the US. Born and raised in Los Angeles. Since I was about nine years old, I've been into nerdy things like D&D, and most of the kids at my school were into it, too. It did not take long at all for us to discover Rogue Trader, Warhammer, Hero Quest, and Epic. This was a good 23 years ago.

In fact, at the time, there was even a Games Workshop store in super-trendy Santa Monica, right next to ultra-high-rent 3rd St. Promenade (although, admittedly, at the time, Santa Monica was a bit funkier and rents much lower). I believe it closed in '92 or thereabouts. That was the last time there was a GW store within 20 miles of "Los Angeles proper".

Does GW "feel" like a foreign company? It certainly does, but in a way that I can't quite put my finger on. There are a lot of peculiar "British-isms" sprinkled throughout the fluff and the philosophy of the company feels somehow very... British. (Don't get me wrong - I am not knocking you - I find you all to be quite charming, on the whole).

I definitely think the grimdark stuff is a product of that unique British ability to be dour better than anyone else on earth! And I think it also is a slight reflection on what I understand is a culture that can be a bit repressive from a peer pressure standpoint.

I've seen Warhammer on shelves in comic stores since I was a kid.

I live in New England, home of the original DakkaDakka game store.

Until DakkaDakka I had never seen a game played other than on my friends living room floor (and he and his brother had NO IDEA how to play ).

The players there had been into GW games since the early days and I was many years younger than most of them.

I suppose it spread as fast as all the other fantasy genre durring the 70s and 80s.

Arandmoor wrote:And yes, it feels like a foreign product. Primarily because of the writing styles used IMO, but also because I can't see an american company pulling the "marine codex" crap GW does. They would be frightened of getting called out on having half of every other codex being blatently reprinted material from the basic marine codex. We do tend to bitch about stuff like that quite a bit louder than you do across the pond for some reason.

Yeah, because Wizards would never stoop to endlessly recycling material... where were they based again?

Also, the Codices are reference books for playing the game; it's useful to have everything your army uses printed in the same book.

Yea, I literally had 3 game stores that sell 40k within 15 miles of my house at the moment... with tournaments regularly held at 2 of them.

Long live new england!

I actually thought that 40k was an American product for a while

Xenocidal Maniac wrote:This is a cool topic.

I'm from the US. Born and raised in Los Angeles. Since I was about nine years old, I've been into nerdy things like D&D, and most of the kids at my school were into it, too. It did not take long at all for us to discover Rogue Trader, Warhammer, Hero Quest, and Epic. This was a good 23 years ago.

In fact, at the time, there was even a Games Workshop store in super-trendy Santa Monica, right next to ultra-high-rent 3rd St. Promenade (although, admittedly, at the time, Santa Monica was a bit funkier and rents much lower). I believe it closed in '92 or thereabouts. That was the last time there was a GW store within 20 miles of "Los Angeles proper".

Does GW "feel" like a foreign company? It certainly does, but in a way that I can't quite put my finger on. There are a lot of peculiar "British-isms" sprinkled throughout the fluff and the philosophy of the company feels somehow very... British. (Don't get me wrong - I am not knocking you - I find you all to be quite charming, on the whole).

I definitely think the grimdark stuff is a product of that unique British ability to be dour better than anyone else on earth! And I think it also is a slight reflection on what I understand is a culture that can be a bit repressive from a peer pressure standpoint.

I am intrigued about these 'British-isms' in the fluff, can you think of any off the top of your head? Or is it just the words used are particulary british?
Interesting stuff this.

Soladrin wrote:Oh hell yeah it feels foreign.

Backwards countries who can't figure out that a Metric system is far superior. ARG.

Ahaaa is funny because Warhammer still uses Imperial measurements.

Cerebrium wrote:

Soladrin wrote:Oh hell yeah it feels foreign.

Backwards countries who can't figure out that a Metric system is far superior. ARG.

Ahaaa is funny because Warhammer still uses Imperial measurements.

Metric is indeed heresy.

I think Chaos Marines use the metric system....

In the Grim Dark of the far future...there are only inches.

Seriously though, I have been playing for about ten years now and in that time the game has grown in popularity where I'm from (Utah, in the United States, if anyone cares). Used to be that I had to drive for an hour on I-15 to get to a gaming store that carried 40k, now, only 15 minutes. The game isn't as big here as it is in a lot of the states, but that's mostly because of the culture.

I also agree with the guy that said the setting feels British. I think it's the whole "Hopelessly surrounded on all sides, but fighting valiantly to the bitter end" bit. Kind of like British history for the past couple hundred years (Napoleonic Wars, WWI, WWII, and anything else that I, in my American snobbery, have not deigned to learn).

Present in German indie stores since early 80s. Not sure how to measure popularity though.

Measurement in inches, funny German names and all those English only publications (IA, BL) make it a clearly foreign product.

is there any disadvantages to being a customer of a UK based company?

This should be answered by our Australian friends

But it is obvious that the management is only familiar with the UK market and unsuccessfully tries to use the same business strategies in other countries and cultures. Their marketing and PR though reminds me more of North Corea than UK

My first exposure to 40k was in an American gaming magazine (Dragon), with an ad for Rogue Trader that was simply a reprint of the weapons chart. It had cool names like "mole-mortars" and "shuriken catapults".

Fortunately my local gaming store carried White Dwarf, so I'd say GW was somewhat popular in Canada from the beginning. Although trying to collect enough minis to make an army back in those days was near impossible if you didn't live in a big city. But I was lucky enough to get Rogue Trader just a few months after it released.

Being a commonwealth country, we didn't consider anything British as particularly foreign here. Most of my friends grew up on Monty Python and Beano* as much as the A-Team and Transformers.

*No, not that Beano. This one.

Cerebrium wrote:

Soladrin wrote:Oh hell yeah it feels foreign.

Backwards countries who can't figure out that a Metric system is far superior. ARG.

Ahaaa is funny because Warhammer still uses Imperial measurements.

its fairly easy to switch the distances over to metric. 1"=2cm. It isn't exact, but its the best way to keep things even.(BTW, thats the measurements they have for the LotG skirmish game. for some reason they have that system use both inches and cm)



There is a pretty sizable group I play with that is largely middle aged guys and they have been playing for a long time, lots of classic models.

I started playing 40K here in the US in 1990. GW arleady had shops and their US HQ set up.

I imagine its received like any fantasy setting not game of thrones, elder scrolls, or Lord of the Rings. Warhammer is popular but only among people that have the desire to get into fantasy settings not listed above. Which is to say things that originated in its public appeal via nerdy hobbies are viewed poorly by the collective american populous. Same goes for 40k; since it started as a wargame and became popular with video games; it is more easily accepted. Also take into account that in the US sci-fi settings tend to get more leeway when not originating from a movie or high profile book.

Warhammer tends to get mixed views i would imagine but 40k is mostly positive. 40k got a better start with the public field in the US because instead of being durp wads like they did with fantasy(see WaR) GW launched several other games to acclimate the population to the IP before launching the MMO. Imagine the views on 40k if they had gone straight into a high profile MMO with only a few poorly made games under their belt? People would call it a bad rip off of starcraft and that opinion would stick for ages.(see WaR but invert it to warcraft) So over all warhammer has moderate outlook. US population tends to look down on fantasy settigns not LoTR, Game of thrones, and to an extend Elder scrolls; so given the way it could have been Warhammer is viewd pretty well here. If it hadn't taken such a monster wound from age of reckoning warhammer fantasy may have been up with 40k right now. Spoilered to conceal anti- EA rant. Related to topic but felt like hiding it. They learned most of the lesson(they got a C i guess). Explained below.

40k has a great appearance to the US. Given sci-fi is only one notch or so above fantasy on the US hate scale; that's saying something. Its a lot more mixed compared to fantasy. Whereas fantasy is almost across the board disdain; 40k is more scattered. Some people hate its OTT nature, some hate it because its sci-fi, some hate it because its a wargame. But the main thing is GW mades its public appearance with 40k a lot better. Instead of going right for a high profile MMO they started with RTS seiries, then started the MMO then made a Third person hack and slash. The audiences they aimed at did not have a misguided view of it by the time it became popular. While the ones isolated from PC gaming didn't know what it was when Space marine came out; the games and therefore the IP received little flak for looking like GoW or SC.

All in all it could be better received but a lot is the ignorant hate of things that are different thign the US is good at. Remember wargames are the less violent but just as satanic brother of video games and rock'n roll. but it is well received among those that would want to receive it. When did it get popular? Can't really say because its not really a popular thing here.

Arandmoor wrote:

Barrington wrote:This aimed mainly at US and overseas users.
I only realised how popular GW and its products were (especially in the US) when i joined Dakka, until then i thought it was a mainly UK operation, but with shops dotted around in other countries, mainly europe.

This got me thinking.
My questions are how long ago did it start to get popular in your country?
and
Do you feel like it is a 'foreign' product, i.e does GW feel british in anyway, and is there any disadvantages to being a customer of a UK based company?

It seems to go through stints here in the Inland Northwest. We used to have a GT over in Seattle, for example, but it died a horrible, horrible death for some reason about 10 years ago.

And yes, it feels like a foreign product. Primarily because of the writing styles used IMO, but also because I can't see an american company pulling the "marine codex" crap GW does. They would be frightened of getting called out on having half of every other codex being blatently reprinted material from the basic marine codex. We do tend to bitch about stuff like that quite a bit louder than you do across the pond for some reason.

Disadvantages? Yeah. When GW releases a new marine codex and I get pissed at them, choking one of their devs untill he turns ultramarine blue costs me a plane ticket. I mean...GW doesn't seem to care very much about complaints leveled by their European players...much less their american ones. Ausie? Oh god I feel sorry for them.

Sometimes I wish an American company would make a game good enough to directly compete with GW. Show you guys how things should be done Too bad there's just not enough money in this market for another big competitor.

There is a bunker in Seattle, and 3 stores in Snohomish and King counties.... So... whatever horrible death it died... it's been resurrected!

Warhammer online is making money? that's news to me. it went F2P not long after it failed miserably.

Worglock wrote:Warhammer online is making money? that's news to me. it went F2P not long after it failed miserably.

No its still got like 300- 1k subscribers still. It also did not go free to play it just has an unlimited trial. It is gak but it still makes money.

I don't think GW products are anywhere near "popular" here in Japan, however they have a following.

Most people move from building plastic models such as Gundams to GW miniatures.

They are also heavily promoting this as a "hobby" and not just a "game." Although technically right... well... yeah =/.

@ Varrak Where did you get this information from?

Very curious.

Encountered "the GW Hobby" around ´97, but it's been around in germany for far longer.

Doesn't feel foreign at all.

In Australia I encountered the hobby in 1991, though it wasn't through a store. Someone at school gave my brother a copy of white dwarf. The first GW store we went into was in 1992 when we bought Titan Legions, then 1994 I think when we bought 40k 2nd edition.

GW stores were pretty sparse until about 2000, at least around Sydney. In the 90's I don't reall many people in the area knowing about the hobby. Since about 2000 the amount of stores has skyrocketed, and I see them everywhere now. Indie stores were pretty common in the 90's, but seem to have mostly died off.

Adam LongWalker wrote:@ Varrak Where did you get this information from?

Very curious.

That EA would close the game when ToR came out? Quite simple. EA is your stereotypical corporation; the one that wants its favored son to be the shining example of awesomeness. What stays in its way? another game under their roof that might sap launch numbers from the game. They cannot and would not tolerate it. Also why would they make any updates for a game they intended to execute? The game still pulls in cash and that cash is better suited for a project that they expect to bring in much more cash. Only reason WoH is being made is so they can keep getting money off of GW's IP when they turn off WaR.

Makes sense to me.

Varrick wrote:

Adam LongWalker wrote:@ Varrak Where did you get this information from?

Very curious.

That EA would close the game when ToR came out? Quite simple. EA is your stereotypical corporation; the one that wants its favored son to be the shining example of awesomeness. What stays in its way? another game under their roof that might sap launch numbers from the game. They cannot and would not tolerate it. Also why would they make any updates for a game they intended to execute? The game still pulls in cash and that cash is better suited for a project that they expect to bring in much more cash. Only reason WoH is being made is so they can keep getting money off of GW's IP when they turn off WaR.

Makes sense to me.

I have no idea what point you are even trying to communicate.

Wow. And I thought the anti-GW ranting and raving around here was bad.