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There's no doubt that GW currently pull in a lot of young new players, however the majority of them drop out again in a year or two.

Veteran wargamers aren't interested in the dropout rate so much as the rate at which GW players transition to long term involvement especially in non-GW areas.

There is clearly recruitment into non-GW wargaming through non-GW avenues as well.

The other concern is the extent to which awareness of wargaming generally is increased by GW and how much that would drop off if GW vanished.

In the UK, the GW shops managed to shut down a lot of FLGS. We might see these come back if GW disappeared, and they would recruit new players if the games on offer were attractive and well presented.

I have a feeling that no matter the external message, the internal GW plan is to trend towards 100% plastic. It might take another five, ten, or twenty years, but I think they're interested in eventually reaching that point.

However, metals work really well for certain castings.Finecast, apparently, can fill a similar niche.

Retooling for all-plastics would cost a fortune. Moving to Finecast as an intermediate step is nearly free for them.