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Simple question I thought would be fun to see answers to. If YOU ran GW for a day.

Rules

While this thread was made to soapbox to some degree, stay on topic, and remember this thread is for fun not just ranting.

We can't have all the comments but be SCREW MATT WARD!!1!!!1! D:< be creative with your ideas!



NOW LET LOGIC CONTROL GW FOR ONCE! WAAAGH!!

It would take more than a day.

I'd fire everyone and hire actual game developers to write the rules. I'd then jack up model prices by 10% and put the plans down to rerelease a better rules system called "Advanced 40k" or something.

Aside from the 'have a sale' answer that will be posted by legions . . .

I'd bring Games Day Canada back! Why they take away my Games Day? *grumbles*

To be honest, I actually like GW so I wouldn't bother trying to alter too much. Their products are fantastic, the fluff is enjoyable, their release schedule has been very impressive lately and the rulesets they release are fun enough, though perhaps a tad convoluted (balance is something I've never griped about too much, I'm not a tourney gamer and my friends and I just play for fun).

Steal from them and high tail it out of the building

Take more than a day......

Hire as many play testers as I could afford. Have them all play for at least a month, 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. Rotating armies, net lists, fluff lists etc... Hire people to record the results meticulously, every detail. Emperical data only, no bias, no opinions.

When its all said and done, use the data to correct flaws in the game. Increase/decrease points for units based on effectiveness (inside and outside codex), FAQ the holy crud out of everything, etc etc...

Keep aforementioned play testers, and create a company rule that all future codex have to be play tested intensely/continuously 60 days before launch.

Oh and drop model prices 20% across the board. Keep the fast release schedule (slow it up just a little).

In the days and weeks leading up to the day that I get to run GW I would tell everyone that I would make huge changes and I would show little competence in management during any interviews. The morning that I take power I will make a public announcement saying that I will make no changes as I think the people normally in charge would make better financial decisions. I would go around the building meeting popular names (including Mr. Ward just to see who he actually is) and getting autographs and a once-in-a-lifetime photo-opportunity and inside look of GW.

Every hour or so I would check the stock market to make sure GW's stock returned to it's pricing before I made all my threats of big changes that would probably be fiscally irresponsible. Then my family and I would sell back our shares and call options we bought when the stock was low.

I would never care about GW prices again...I wouldn't much care for the price of anything again...

But also I would suggest they make a quality movie.

I'd stop pandering to Britons and move everything over to Chinese slave-labor prices instead of just book printing. Then I'd cut the share dividend to zero (because it's absurd that they have one at all), and immediately shut down all bricks and mortar stores and sell off the real estate.

With that vast, vast wad of cash, I'd hire a bunch of game developers to make a bunch of new games to re-diversify back out of just two serious games. Then, at the end of the day, I'd issue myself a bunch of stock.

The profits from the new games would be enough to take the company private, which would give me a bunch of cash, personally, and free up the corporation from the slave master of quarterly earnings reports. Plus, I'd become personally rich in the process.

With all that money, I could afford to hire snoops and goons to find and beat up people who complain about things on the internet.

Gut management.

Seriously, its the idiots at the top who are using the company as their own personal cash machine and making all the short term decisions to get more dividends this year at the expense of viability 3 years from now who are to blame for everything people don't like about the current company.

 Warboss Gobslag wrote:

Take more than a day......

Hire as many play testers as I could afford. Have them all play for at least a month, 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. Rotating armies, net lists, fluff lists etc... Hire people to record the results meticulously, every detail. Emperical data only, no bias, no opinions.

When its all said and done, use the data to correct flaws in the game. Increase/decrease points for units based on effectiveness (inside and outside codex), FAQ the holy crud out of everything, etc etc...

Keep aforementioned play testers, and create a company rule that all future codex have to be play tested intensely/continuously 60 days before launch.

Oh and drop model prices 20% across the board. Keep the fast release schedule (slow it up just a little).

So you plan to spend a lot of money conducting arduous play testing, cut profits and still keep up the same schedule?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Steal from them and high tail it out of the building

this, screw trying to fix it, I would need months. (although I WOULD implement some FAQ to certian armies/models...

Not possible to do anything of value in a day. So probably walk around and meet people. Buy a crap ton of models at a discount. Get my codex signed buy the writing team. Contemplate giving kirby a good solid kick in the jewels just cause.

Biggest problem GW has its public. Get rid of that and put somebody competent in charge that wants to grow the game as well as the community then you have something.

I'd read all the unreleased rules they currently have and look at the future product range. Not much else to do in a day.

Although it'd give me some time to read threads like this and be grateful it makes figuring out who to put on ignore so easy.

Institute a public, set, dependable release schedule. (Five year cycle seems fair enough to me.)

Then I'd sit down and write some cogent, relevant, topical FAQs.

If I had any time left over, I'd pop on down to R&D and helpfully suggest some rules be added in to firing into melee. (Seriously, anything. Misses automatically hit your own guys? Fine. Only if both combatants are 'enemies'? (Ala allies of convenience or somesuch) Fine. Only snap shots? Fine. Seriously. Anything.)

Finally, if I'm feeling particularly self-absorbed, I might "accidentally" kill the entire Tyranid product line.

GW is not sailing a blue ocean anymore. There's real competition out there, and if GW wants to keep and even expand their now-contested share of the market, PR and social skills matter. So I'd tell them to grow a thicker skin and dare to open up.

End the stupid policy of secrecy, isolation and media silence that is preventing GW from capitalizing its sucesses, but that in turn magnifies every failure.

Advertise. Not clunky TV ads, but real, XXIst century advertising.

Re-knit ties with the sci-fi and fantasy fandoms.

Fire the mindless lawbots that seem to make up the legal team. Hire new ones, preferrably actual IP lawyers with a bit of business acumen.

Sell it to someone else to fix and hopefully make a fair amount of cash while doing it.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Gut management.

This, but I'm not stopping there. Every single "game designer" at GW HQ is fired for incompetence and laziness, and I'm going to be absolutely sure to do it in a way that burns every bridge and keeps them from even thinking about coming back once my day is over.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Gut management.

Seriously, its the idiots at the top who are using the company as their own personal cash machine and making all the short term decisions to get more dividends this year at the expense of viability 3 years from now who are to blame for everything people don't like about the current company.

As a strategic business consultant - you have no idea of how common this is (or maybe you do).

It has been a disastrous trend for the last 10-15 years of so - so many companies are making BAD long term decisions just to boost their quarter or yearly numbers.

Ironically, some of the best run companies I work for are the privately held firms - they are not slaves to wall street numbers, and make a lot more longer term decisions (many, not all).

What would I do?

I would buy back the stock, and make it private.
I would fire all the guys who forgot that it was a game company, and not just a dividend.
I would fire anyone publicly who let their ego, or corporate politics get in the way of good business decisions.
I would institute better customer relations, regular faq's and play testors, and acknowledge it is indeed a game people like to use in competitive formats.
I would stop pretending forgeworld does not exist, and incorporate them into the main business.
I would licence all the "specialist games" to fantasy flight, and them run with them.
I would make Codexes be sold by digital subscriptions, and you would pay a "fee" to get free updates for the life of an edition, and could get them printed on demand.
I would let FLGS sell said codex and rulebook subscriptions to not cut them out of the profit chain.
I would set in a long term business plan which would create a better product and customer experience, yet maintain solid sustaining profits .

Believe it not, these things are not hard to figure out - what is hard to do is find businesses leadership that is not bogged down with internal politics, has some guts and long term vision and is not just there to grow their stock options and golden parachute.

I'd have a... SALE!! Tacking 50% of every product! Open every store at 5am in the morning for that day only! Apart from that I'd lead everyone over to the lord of the rings section. I'd also give freebies out and stuff.

I would wander over to nottingham warhammer world.
I would get all the armies in the display cases, take them down to the games room.
Put all the tables together (or as near as possible)
Tell the bar to serve free food and drink.
Invite everybody who plays 40k to come and take part.

I'm not going to get many/any changes made to policy in a day, but damn I could have a good day

One day would not suffice.

I'd consolidate all xeno codex into a Codex: Xeno, just to piss off the internet.

Then i'd comission a dozen Imperial Guard suppliments, along with plastic mordians, preatorians, and valhallans.

Sell company to Privateer Press or WotC.

I'd have to hire myself for a year, and if I'm in charge, I suppose I could make that happen.

I wouldn't fire everyone, namely because they've been exposed to the stuff for a long time, but I'd have to have a serious sit down with them to review their past judgment calls.

Review the "Play Testing" schemes that are used to pump out the books. If necessary, hire more play testers to make it run more smoothly.

Make a 'leader' for each team and have weekly meetings to see where they're at.

Institute a "beta testing" type stage where after its play tested, raffle tickets to allow gamers to win the chance to play test a new army. Give them the new book, invite them in for a weekend, pay for them to spend the weekend, and let them play and list build and see what they think. Use this stage to tweak things that might be big, and then release the book.

Get rid of this senseless "Must release a book every month." I know people complained about not getting something once a month, but I think getting something every day is worse... I think some agree.

To be honest, I don't know much about how the company is run now, but they make money, and we all still buy their stuff, despite how much we rant about them. They do make me angry a lot, but at the end of the day, I just want them to be successful so I have the game that I like. Outside of the competitive arena, it's really not a bad game to me... or at least not THAT bad a game.

Send myself huge immediate financial bonus.

Spend bonus on new models.

Repeat until day is over.

xruslanx wrote:
I'd consolidate all xeno codex into a Codex: Xeno, just to piss off the internet.

Then i'd comission a dozen Imperial Guard suppliments, along with plastic mordians, preatorians, and valhallans.

If you're doing things to piss off the internet then consolidate all the xeno's into the marine book too. And consolidate all marines into one book. Also, remove chapter tactics and declare that marines now only have warbands as such provide rules for four sorts of warband.
Do as many imp guard supplements as you like, just have them as battle brothers with necrons, tyranids and tau - all fieldable at the same time on the table.
And nerf armies randomly and sporadically.

It would need more than a day to implement things but GW really isn't that bad.

First thing would be to create some form of loyalty scheme. I've can definately say that the old Skullz promotion made me spend more money.

Secondly would be to separate rules and fluff a little more. The supplement books are fluff sold disguised as rulebooks.

Well it takes more than a day to make such a big company steer its direction and change its policies.
There is a purpose behind everything they do right now and I am sure that if someone would explain that to me I would suddenly discover that money always are the ultimate goal .
So in a day I would have someone explain to me the master plan they have to stay alive in a market with growing competition and why they try to make everyone buy from them and close every other reseller that doesn't have a proper shop. Then I would have the release plan of the next five years with as many pics of new models as I can find and escape the headquarters in my 30 tons track full of minis of every army both 40k and fantasy. 10 tons of minis give away here in dakka 10 tons for my friends and 10 tons for me ! What a day!

I would drive that Rhino they have home and keep it. That is if it even is able to. If not then I'll tow it home.

 conker249 wrote:
I would drive that Rhino they have home and keep it. That is if it even is able to. If not then I'll tow it home.

How on earth I forgot about the rhino! Don't just drive it home fill it with minis first!