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I like that they produce models and rules for a game that has very interesting and unique background "fluff," and is popular enough to find just about anywhere you go.

I hate hate hate hate hate their prices, their slow release schedule, and their attitude of taking their customers for granted.

Tycho from Penny Arcade sums up my feelings quite well. "I would never say that the customer is always right, but it's tautology that the customer is a customer, and unless the carpet of your store is slick and dark with petroleum leaking from some fissure in the earth, those mother ers coming in the door are the reason you have a door in the first ing place."

Dreamforge. I may have gotten armorcast and dreamforge mixed up, but because GW made a big scene and all that stuff it sounds like it was dreamforge. My mistake GW, **** you for shutting down DREAMFORGE.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Ah! horsegak!

A thread title that says "Is GW really that bad?" and I voted 'Yes', except the poll question is 'Do you like GW'.

I've been duped!

That's what you get for not reading PAW, or Polls as Written.

theduncan: Ah yes, that's what they were called. Thanks for reminding me!

theduncan wrote:Dreamforge. I may have gotten armorcast and dreamforge mixed up, but because GW made a big scene and all that stuff it sounds like it was dreamforge. My mistake GW, **** you for shutting down DREAMFORGE.

I still think you have it mixed up. Dreamforge is still around as far as I know, as they released something earlier this month I believe . Maybe you are thinking of Ultraforge? The husband and wife owned company that made "Greater Daemons", dragons and such. If so, I'm pretty sure their disappearance had nothing to do with GW. Numerous rumors were that they had a kid and couldn't devote the time to their side project, they sold the company, divorce.. etc etc. In fact, I don't think anyone knows what happened to them. Just poof! . No word from them at all.

NELS1031 wrote:

theduncan wrote:Dreamforge. I may have gotten armorcast and dreamforge mixed up, but because GW made a big scene and all that stuff it sounds like it was dreamforge. My mistake GW, **** you for shutting down DREAMFORGE.

I still think you have it mixed up. Dreamforge is still around as far as I know, as they released something earlier this month I believe . Maybe you are thinking of Ultraforge? The husband and wife owned company that made "Greater Daemons", dragons and such. If so, I'm pretty sure their disappearance had nothing to do with GW. Numerous rumors were that they had a kid and couldn't devote the time to their side project, they sold the company, divorce.. etc etc. In fact, I don't think anyone knows what happened to them. Just poof! . No word from them at all.

Dreamforge also made this:

Armorcast, Dreamforge and Ultraforge all weren't crushed by GW.

Armorcast lost the licence to do the 40k scale versions of GW epic models (like Titans and Tyranid super heavies), which was a huge blow, but the existed a long time with other stuff, then went out of business for a while, then sold their moulds to new owners that are still prospering (for an evening garage business) under the same name.
http://armorcast.com/store/

Dreamforge had few products, one of them the famous Emperor Titan (sold 5 or 6 of them). They also produced a nice walker tank. The lawsuit forced a major reorganisation, but seemingly they are still around:
http://dreamforge-games.com/onlineshopping.html

Ultraforge was out of business for about a year, but is working on their new online-shop for a while, with all models except the Greater Nurgle-like Daemon. Shop not yet functional, but I check several times a week And as of 11th December 2010, they are still a pair
http://www.ultraforgeminiatures.com/

malfred wrote:

NELS1031 wrote:

theduncan wrote:Dreamforge. I may have gotten armorcast and dreamforge mixed up, but because GW made a big scene and all that stuff it sounds like it was dreamforge. My mistake GW, **** you for shutting down DREAMFORGE.

I still think you have it mixed up. Dreamforge is still around as far as I know, as they released something earlier this month I believe . Maybe you are thinking of Ultraforge? The husband and wife owned company that made "Greater Daemons", dragons and such. If so, I'm pretty sure their disappearance had nothing to do with GW. Numerous rumors were that they had a kid and couldn't devote the time to their side project, they sold the company, divorce.. etc etc. In fact, I don't think anyone knows what happened to them. Just poof! . No word from them at all.

Dreamforge also made this:

I want one of these, not that I could ever afford one.

I wish GW would at least have made them pay for the rights, but they had to kill the only emperor titan mould .

Oh bravo GW, bravo .

The thing I dislike most about GW is the contempt they show their own ruleset.

With the money they make they could quite easily employ a couple of professionals to go through each codex and minimize the problems that are encountered on every single one. They could be far more responsive to questions about ambiguous rules, hell they have a great resource in the INAT FAQ that would at least show them what people feel need clarification.

It's just a shame they aren't as zealous in sorting out their rules as they are in protecting their ip.

Before anybody says gw shouldn't sue people fur using their ip, ask yourself, would you let someone get away with making money off you're idea and not give you any money for it ?

GW is great, but expensive. Wouldn't mind if things were just a little cheaper. W40k Rules are at their best (Minus my Dark Angels Codex *hint,hint). Would like it if FW prices dropped

moonshine wrote:Before anybody says gw shouldn't sue people fur using their ip, ask yourself, would you let someone get away with making money off you're idea and not give you any money for it ?

That depends on whether or not allowing them to make money off of my IP helps or hurts my ability to make money off of my IP.

GW overprices their products completely. They show no concern for any army that won't make them as much money as the Space Marine armies.

They're management is plain and simple, a bunch of scumbags.

They fired a few great creative minds, and are just being general donkey-caves about their attitude towards their fans with all this IP protection bs.

I'm done buying from GW until they realize that their business habits are self destructive, and they will pay for it in the long run.

moonshine wrote:Hi dakka
I just wanted to find out what you think of gw

Imo

I do alot of reading around the internet and alot of people bad mouth gw, and i'm asking are they really that bad. I listen to 40k radio and other podcasts , and they talk alot about gw, it's gotten so annoying I try and skip it. On dakka and otherfan sites people moan e at gw all the time.

But ask yourself this.

Did you come up with somthing as awsome as 40k ?, and if they are that annoying, why don't you just buy from someone else?

Here what people moan about most.

Price rises. Listen people, in the uk the vat goes up somtimes and gw are forced to put up prices, just like clothes shops, eletrical shops and most other shops. Ocasionly they put up prices without being forced and i don't know why, but it's a buisness and desighned to make money.

Secondly people are now moaning abouth cahpterhouse. On the gw website you can get a list of thing you can and cannot do with their ip , chapterhouse should have read it, and if you do read it you realise they are very leniant, as long as you don't make money orsay its official, they don't mind.

Third people moaning they don't do enough. Now some people say gw needs to do more stuff and take more risks, but at the end of the day i'd rather gw are a stable company who don't take risks, it's nice how calm they are because we never have to worry about our local gw closing or being taken out of some store, they're doing fine now and i hope they keep it up.

I'll end this rant by saying

Put yourself in gw's shoes before you moan at them, and if you still have a problem with them, don't buy their stuff.

Well thats my veiw what does everybody else think?

So let me get this right...

You have a straight up yes or no poll about GW?

It's not as simple as yes or no.

As for your opinion, you pretty much have it that GW can do no wrong, and that there isn't an issue on the table as to how they treat thier consumers, general business practice, and that even though they have improved in some areas over the years, they have craptasticly failed in some of the most basic of others in as much time.

Instead of throwing down a blanket gauntlet over something as basic an issue, why not be a little more constructive in this sort of a conversation.

For one, your post, and pedestrian poll come off as adversarial, you don't even have a clue as to what the bottom line issue is that people have. Its basicly, "So, you don't like GW! You don't have any reason, so just suck it!"

"Here what people moan about most.

Price rises. Listen people, in the uk the vat goes up somtimes and gw are forced to put up prices, just like clothes shops, eletrical shops and most other shops. Ocasionly they put up prices without being forced and i don't know why, but it's a buisness and desighned to make money.

Secondly people are now moaning abouth cahpterhouse. On the gw website you can get a list of thing you can and cannot do with their ip , chapterhouse should have read it, and if you do read it you realise they are very leniant, as long as you don't make money orsay its official, they don't mind.

Third people moaning they don't do enough. Now some people say gw needs to do more stuff and take more risks, but at the end of the day i'd rather gw are a stable company who don't take risks, it's nice how calm they are because we never have to worry about our local gw closing or being taken out of some store, they're doing fine now and i hope they keep it up."


These generalized statements are incorrect. Your opinions are pretty generalized in the fact that your just jumping on the fanboy bandwagon, and not really addressing these peoples issues. Price. GW's actions in response to third party off market bits, and Thier Stores general practices are three very different, and braod strokes that you pretty much sum up as, "Well they can do what they want, charge what they want, treat people any way they want, and you as a paying consumer don't really have a thing to say about it because they are the dogs!"

If you've been around Dakka for ANY amount oif time, you have to know that your pretty much out of line, and instead of just telling people that they are a bunch of hacks because they don't go with the lemming flow, you might go one better and come up with an actual conversation, and try a little to have an actual conversation.

"Did you come up with something as awsome as 40k ?, and if they are that annoying, why don't you just buy from someone else?"
Oh, you have no idea....

One word there, junior....

Cthulhu.

moonshine wrote:Before anybody says gw shouldn't sue people fur using their ip, ask yourself, would you let someone get away with making money off you're idea and not give you any money for it ?

Sadly I would have to as ideas are not protected by IP law.

If you think they should be, a good place to start suing would be GW, who have "taken inspiration" from a range of in copyright SF and fantasy sources for the creation of their apparently, unique, worthy of defence, IP.

I have to be honest, I started with GW, I'll probably end with GW the time and money I've invested is just to great for me to ever leave over poor management etc. but I never even knew about any of this stuff till I got on Dakka, how did ya'll learn about the suings, shutdowns, IP fights, all these quotes from GW employees, firings etc. I'd like to read more about them.

Careful of asking the Interwebs for such things. What you'll see is a few facts, ruined by interpretation, bias and opinion, to the point where it's best to just ignore them.

Grot6: I'm not saying they can't do anything wrong, some things they do annoyme (e.i) the storm raven rules and when tney randomly increase prices but the last time their prices went up (a few weeks ago) it was only by a few pence (but if it has gone up in other places by more in other place, sorry, I was didn't know that)

moonshine wrote:Grot6: I'm not saying they can't do anything wrong, some things they do annoyme (e.i) the storm raven rules and when tney randomly increase prices but the last time their prices went up (a few weeks ago) it was only by a few pence (but if it has gone up in other places by more in other place, sorry, I was didn't know that)

That price rise was due to the VAT, which has gone up for the first time in 20 years and is one of the only price increases imposed upon them. Their typical price rises are those made by choice and often as much as several pounds on medium sized items.

Sometime around April-June is their price increase time. A box of Marines is currently £23 on their website, well it wouldn't surprise me at all if they go up to £25. I can assure you that Space Marine commanders will not stay at £13.80, they'll seek to round up the price to maybe £15.

I agree with you there, hopefully (even though it's unlikly) the prices will stay the same or if they do increase prices again it will just round the price up (e.i) kommmandos are £22.50 now (if i recall corectly) hopefully the will go up to £23 if they increase prices

£25 for 10 plastic figures is starting to sound expensive.

But I suppose Devastator squads are already £4 per figure, although of course you get enough spare parts to equip a bunch of normal SMs as Devastators too.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

moonshine wrote:Grot6: I'm not saying they can't do anything wrong, some things they do annoyme (e.i) the storm raven rules and when tney randomly increase prices but the last time their prices went up (a few weeks ago) it was only by a few pence (but if it has gone up in other places by more in other place, sorry, I was didn't know that)

That price rise was due to the VAT, which has gone up for the first time in 20 years and is one of the only price increases imposed upon them. Their typical price rises are those made by choice and often as much as several pounds on medium sized items.

Not in its entirety - the increase in VAT was rounded up, meaning a few extra pence in GW's pocket - http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/339454.page#2323202

If I was going to be overly pedantic, it was the first increase in VAT for 1 year: it rose from 15% to 17.5% on 1st January 2010

If you work out the cost of each figure in a box of plastic figure it's not that bad. Ork boyz are £1.36 and there are lots of options in that box marines £2.25 each. imo that doesn't sound too bad.

moonshine wrote:If you work out the cost of each figure in a box of plastic figure it's not that bad. Ork boyz are £1.36 and there are lots of options in that box marines £2.25 each. imo that doesn't sound too bad.

Compared to what though? I think £2.25 for a single plastic figure is quite a bit actually, especially in light of other manufacturers and historical pricing. But then again I've seen the price on these plastics more than double in ten years. Ten years might seem a long time but the only other thing I can think of that has doubled in that time is petrol. Imperial Guard figures have increased so much that they've halved the contents of the box to keep them under £20. Catachans were 20 for £10 or £12 when they first came out, now they are 10 for £15.

I'm going to hazard a guess that you're fairly young or not been in the hobby long enough to see the full scope of the way they have changed over the years.

yes but even though it is £2.25 for a single model that isn't including the options you get with it

moonshine wrote:yes but even though it is £2.25 for a single model that isn't including the options you get with it

That's true, however you can't use all the options, so in some sense you are paying for a lot of extra bits you don't need, which wastes a lot of plastic.

There probably is a market for the simple, snap-fit models like the AoBR SMs and the five-in-a-box Termagants.

If the models are going to be more complicated and customisable, it would be nice to have them designed for better flexibility in customisation. Tau Fire Warriors, for instance, have the right arm and weapons moulded in a single piece. This makes it much harder to pose them differently to the standard poses GW chose.

Even though you get lots of peices you don't need they can normally be used on somthing else, I don't think I've ever looked in my bits box and seen somthing that I would call useless

I don't think a handful of parts for the bits box justifies the cost. I mainly look at the number of models that can be made from the box, anything else is a mere bonus and shouldn't cost a significant amount at all.

To this day I find it amazing that such a massive company still has tremendous imbalances in their game's core system. The fact that they haven't updated the necrons in so long is ridiculous. They fact that there's a space marine chapter worse than the others (dark angels) is ridiculous. Such simple things shouldn't be so and they are. YES we all love their models and fluff, but people forget that sculpts are often made by people who aren't directly from GW. I think as a company GW is slowed. They don't advertise to try and get new people, they simply rely on word of mouth. I played Dawn of War for like 3 years before I even knew about a table top version (amazing right)...In addition they're constantly raising prices on everything, including codexes, despite the fact that their cost of production doesn't rise for those. I could easily like GW provided they didn't do such stupid gak.

GW have to pay for sculpting and moulding the spare parts, so they can't for free.

However, it might be better to do a core model set with the basic selection of weapons, and separate weapon options as additional sprues bought separately.

This would allow people to avoid paying for all the extra bits they don't need. In other words, only the people wanting specific parts would have to pay for them.

As an example, the main Termagants box contains three different weapon options. You only ever use one of them, as you can't equip a unit of Termagants with a variety of weapons. So the other two sets are completely wasted. A lot of players probably decide what to put on their Gants before they even buy them. Wouldn't it be better to sell a body sprue and separate weapon sprues?

Perhaps this would cause too many stock control problems for GW.

It probably would, if you just got the bodies you would need to buy lots of upgrade packs and for smaller stores, you just can't fit it all in. Plus it would be a pain to buy all of the parts you need