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I've been thinking, we all kinda know that GW is a bit wavy on their stability (some releases make us go "GOLDEN AGE OF GW" and other times "DARKEST AGE OF GW) but I am a bit curious to wonder, what if it were to all go away? I mean a sudden dive into the abyss, like say in 1 month GW closes up shop and warhammer ceases to exist as a supported game.

What would happen to the hobby with this vacuum? Would you still play warhammer, or go for a different ruleset? Would warhammer attain a cult kinda like Battletech and some of the other various old time wargames? What would happen to Dakka?

End of the world as we know it.

First off, I don't think that GW is going anywhere, any time soon. They may have a lot of good competition right now, but they still have a gigantic following, and their IP is arguably more popular right now than it ever has been with many successful video games, books, and fan web communities.

Hypothetically, if GW were to close up shop, I'm sure many people would continue playing. As long as there were available opponents, I would play. I'm sure I would devote more of my hobby time to other systems than I do now, but I would not drop 40k or WHF.

Even if GW died Warhammer wouldn't go anywhere. Someone would buy the rights.

We'd all get lives and buy mansions within a year with the money we saved?

Old Citadel minis already have a cult like following (for lack of a better term). There will always be collectors.

HBMC is pretty correct that someone would buy the rights. If they did it for the IP and not the model range though, I'm sure discussion would just shift to another game, since all those GW only gamers would as well.

Likely Warmahordes would become the focus and smaller communities like Malifaux, Infinity and FoW would swell.

DerpaDerpa would become a smaller, niche community.

Well, more niche than it already is.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Even if GW died Warhammer wouldn't go anywhere. Someone would buy the rights.

Bingo.
You hit the nail on the head sir.

Another big player would buy GW and kick start it all over again.
Might be a different ruleset etc but it would keep going of that I'm sure.

Regarding other rule sets, I already play other rule sets and enjoy them with my GW miniatures.
Competition keeps the competitors lean.

Assuming the guys at the shop dropped it as well I'd be putting much more emphasis on getting my Menoth army up to par as quick as I could so I can still get a weekly game in.

Well, I've still got thousands and thousands of points of multiple armies, as do my opponents and fellow Dakka users. There would be a lot less in the way of new blood, but I think Dakka as a whole would still be pretty healthy for some time. Dakka would peter out eventually until it was mostly the die-hards and forum veterans. There are still plenty of FoW and WM/H players here, so those sections would likely be the same, but GW stuff is the biggest part of the site.

Captain Toad wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Even if GW died Warhammer wouldn't go anywhere. Someone would buy the rights.

Bingo.
You hit the nail on the head sir.

Another big player would buy GW and kick start it all over again.
Might be a different ruleset etc but it would keep going of that I'm sure.

Regarding other rule sets, I already play other rule sets and enjoy them with my GW miniatures.
Competition keeps the competitors lean.

Can anyone say battletech? Its gone through the hands of AT LEAST 3 different companies and I would argue that its rule are better than ever now

"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone,
they paved paradise put up a parking lot."

If Warhammer were to disappear I would instantly transform from my current state..




To this..

Just think of the fate of DnD and TSR in the 90's. TSR tanked, WoTC bought the license, brought the game into a new golden age with 3e (....then there was the whole dition wars thing recently that deosn't really bare mentioning, as bringing it up could actually get people stabbed/shot).

I can see a similar story should GW ever go tango uniform, with a third party sweeping up the IP, cleaning up the rules, establishing a sane release schedule, and propelling the game to new heights of popularity.

GW going bye-bye or the game? And how does the game going away stop what's already out there from still being played? Likewise for the company.

It's not like GW do tournaments or support them anymore, anyway.

I still play Kryomek occasionally. The company that made it went bye-bye back in the 90s (although another company DID pick up the moulds and stuff for it) - but we still use the rules and models we bought back then.

mattyrm wrote:If Warhammer were to disappear I would instantly transform from my current state..

A sex change?

Each to their own....

As HMBC said someone would get the rights BUT the winner would probably want to take the IP in a more profitable direction than a niche hobby like unpainted miniatures.

I would say, based on other games that have gone through this, we might get a year or more of silence and then a relaunch of 40k as pre-paints, or a line of video games, or even a movie (a real movie that is).

Probably a lot of the GW vets would use this time to launch something else, call it 'Battleaxe in the 401st Century' to feed the addiction of the existing fan base.

I would not hold out much hope for the table top game. Unless the new owner wants to stay in the unpainted mini business there'd be no new product and most stores would not allow people to use their space if there isn't anything to sell. Sure there will be people who play on their own for years but it will slowly die out.

Mostly I'm thinking of how things went with Mutant Chronicles but Battletech also followed some of this path (though they at least kept the TT game going as Classic Battletech).

So it would be a big change and a roll of the dice, 5 years later 40k might be bigger than ever with Brad Pitt starring as Logan Grimnar, or it might be another footnote in gaming history.

Well, I really don't think (assuming GW, 40k and WHFB were to magically vanish tomorrow) DakkaDakka would disappear or anything, but it would assuredly go through a focus change. HordesMachine would likely step up to fill the void. Of course a lot of people would fall off, but those who didn't would gravitate toward another system. There would be more of a shift toward other forums, and that would expand them while the main GW forums would probably be reduced to their own little single area forum, like Infinity, Malifaux, and other skirmish games is now. There'd be a major shakeup here for sure.

Flames of War, Infinity, Malifaux, and the aforementioned HordesMachine would gain new followers. I'd defect (and take as many 40k players as possible) to Infinity ASAP. Of course there would be those who would stalwartly stay with GW games alive or dead (there's a group around here that still clings to 3rd edition 40k). I may even dust off my Space Wolves, Dark Eldar, or Plague Marines from time to time to time for old nostalgia's sake.

Then there would be those that just quit wargaming altogether. FLGS' everywhere would be hurt for sure. I'd even say my local one would quite possibly go under (they're having trouble taking in enough money to keep their shelves stocked even now).
...Or maybe not. The existing community would be forced to shift location from GW to FLGS, and that would likely bring an influx of money...

Any way, the landscape would be shaken up for sure, but wargaming, and by extension DakkaDakka would survive.

I still play the occasional shadowrun RPG and what not and that hasnt been supported in years....

You got the book for WHFB and the models... thats all you need to play..... you dont ever need new stuff......

Rules and models... is all these games are and you have both...

you would simply be being NEW stuff from a different company.....

IE you can buy mantic skeletons instead of GW ones and still use 8E book etc....

To be completely honest DakkaDakka would not go anywhere there are more and more others that are dedicating their time to alternative games not produced by Games workshop, whether that is Warmachine, Hordes, Infinity, Flames of War, as well as your friendly neighborhood RPG players that are looking for more players to start a game. Those that enjoy the hobby will eventually adapt and get over their loss of what may be only a small portion on New Box purchases. Honestly I have not purchased anything Games workshop in over four months now, simply because I enjoy the 40k RPG series more than I enjoyed playing 40k.

Milisim wrote:I still play the occasional shadowrun RPG and what not and that hasnt been supported in years....

You got the book for WHFB and the models... thats all you need to play..... you dont ever need new stuff......

Rules and models... is all these games are and you have both...

you would simply be being NEW stuff from a different company.....

IE you can buy mantic skeletons instead of GW ones and still use 8E book etc....

You really like ellipses don't you?

Brother SRM wrote:

Milisim wrote:I still play the occasional shadowrun RPG and what not and that hasnt been supported in years....

You got the book for WHFB and the models... thats all you need to play..... you dont ever need new stuff......

Rules and models... is all these games are and you have both...

you would simply be being NEW stuff from a different company.....

IE you can buy mantic skeletons instead of GW ones and still use 8E book etc....

You really like ellipses don't you?

That seems to be his thing.

Milisim wrote:I still play the occasional shadowrun RPG and what not and that hasnt been supported in years....

You got the book for WHFB and the models... thats all you need to play..... you dont ever need new stuff......

Rules and models... is all these games are and you have both...

you would simply be being NEW stuff from a different company.....

IE you can buy mantic skeletons instead of GW ones and still use 8E book etc....

Shadowrun is still kicking chummer
http://www.shadowrun4.com/

and i agree with everything you say there

It is possible for GW to disappear of course.... NO company is immune to that, but there's no way warhammer will disappear at this point. The IP would be purchased and continued by someone.

Warhammer won't die. Not anytime soon at least.

If it did, Privateer Press would throw the biggest party in the history of Seattle.

Dakka would do just find, people would just continue to play the older rules. Dakka actually may do better if people were here looking for playerdex's.

If GW closed tomorrow, Dakka would probably go the way of Maxminis after the demise of D&D minis. Considering GW has a much better system than Wizards of the Coast did, its highly unlikely in the near future

mattyrm wrote:If Warhammer were to disappear I would instantly transform from my current state..

-image snip-

To this..

-image snip-

Racial transformation into a black dude?

Ravenous D wrote:We'd all get lives and buy mansions within a year with the money we saved?

Yeah, I'm with you. I think I'd at least finally own my car for starters...

For the sake of the thread, let's assume that GW goes bust because their IP stops being popular. That would mean no other company would want to buy it, and official releases would simply cease.

The games would be frozen in whatever status they held at the time of bankruptcy. For example, if 40K were frozen right now, we would have a bad mixture of strong and weak codexes (I'm looking at you, Tau). Also, there would be no more models once the supply chain all fed through.

This wouldn't stop people playing. The rules and figures don't have a use by date. There are people still playing 6th edition WRG Ancients, which was superseded by 7th edition in the late 1980s. (And I've got a copy of 5th edition in my library, still perfectly playable with my armies for DBA/FoG.)

It would stop recruitment. There wouldn't be a HHHobby to recruit into. The only way to get started would be to buy secondhand armies. That would require other people to drop out.

I don't know whether the TTWG hobby as a whole would suffer. Most of the kids who start with GW drop out pretty quickly. It may be that GW were simply the most successful surfer on a wave that built the whole scene.

If that's true, then DakkaDakka would presumably diversify to other games. It has already been happening anyway, though obviously 40K and WHFB are still the top two games on the site.

Locclo wrote:

Racial transformation into a black dude?

I hope your aware I'm not the fat weird white bloke in make-up either!