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All this doom and gloom and conspiracy theories are starting to get very tire sum

Well the way Mr Kirby has been miss-managing GW and treating the potential customers of GW as people who only exist to pay over the odds for product to support his retirement fund.
Got far more tiresome far more quickly.And he has been acting like this for years...

If GW went down I would be pretty happy, because their products would absolutely not vanish, tens of millions of people play WH and 40k.

Hopefully the next bloke in charge would be a little bit less like Jack "Tywin Lannister" Kirby.

 mattyrm wrote:
If GW went down I would be pretty happy, because their products would absolutely not vanish, tens of millions of people play WH and 40k.

Hopefully the next bloke in charge would be a little bit less like Jack "Tywin Lannister" Kirby.

Yeah, we can all hope he'd be a human incarnation of Tyrion right?

 Dais wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Dais wrote:

Keep in mind though, what is best for GW, the industry as a whole, and us as fans is not all the same.

That's a perspective that is pervasive among businesspeople these days, and IMO it's both untrue and toxic. It is entirely possible for a business to perpetuate itself, experience modest growth, and take care of the needs and wants of their customers at the same time, indeed I would say that doing the best you can to meet the needs of your customers is the best way to ensure the former two remain true over the long term. It's only once a company and their shareholders swallow the Hayekian playbook whole and begin regurgitating nonsense about "the duty to shareholders is to make the most money possible all the time at any cost" that the problems begin.

You're right. I should have phrased that better. GW have many false beliefs about their business which you covered wonderfully above. Likewise, many in the community believe that dirt cheap minis is the only improvement they care about. I know we all have different views on what a gamer's Shangri la would be, but I've seen so many people complain about the status quo without looking at a broader picture I know there are some shortsighted points of view out there.

If I may rephrase my statement :
what we players believe we want, what gw believes is best for them, and what is best for the industry are not all the same.

That's fair. To be honest my reply was a bit on the hostile side, I just come up against the "hurr durr its a biznizz dey make da moneez hurr" argument so often that I tend to try and head it off at the pass, as it were. I don't think it will ever be possible to please 100% of people, or please everyone 100% of the time, even during what I consider GW's heyday they still made models I thought sucked, and decisions I thought stupid, but they at least kept up the pretense that they saw their customers as something more than ambulatory wallets, and what communication they did have with the rest of us was much less infested with Orwellian marketing doublespeak.

 Supreme Kai wrote:
You're forgetting about FLGS.

Flgs dont have anywhere near the world wide coverage of gw if gw went under the whole wargames sector would suffer mabe not at first but in the long run new players would harder to hook into the hobby. At the moment most of the new players come into our world through gw.
MARK THESE WORDS LIKE IT OR NOT WE ALL NEED GW TO SURVIVE IN THE LONG RUN.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And im not a gw fan at the moment most of my gw stuff is either sold or on its way out.

Welsh_Furey wrote:

 Supreme Kai wrote:
You're forgetting about FLGS.

Flgs dont have anywhere near the world wide coverage of gw if gw went under the whole wargames sector would suffer mabe not at first but in the long run new players would harder to hook into the hobby. At the moment most of the new players come into our world through gw.
MARK THESE WORDS LIKE IT OR NOT WE ALL NEED GW TO SURVIVE IN THE LONG RUN.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And im not a gw fan at the moment most of my gw stuff is either sold or on its way out.

Speak for your self, the embargo meant i started buying Chinese recasting and making my own. We dont need GW, GW needs US. GW might go away, the IP wont.

 mattyrm wrote:
If GW went down I would be pretty happy, because their products would absolutely not vanish, tens of millions of people play WH and 40k.

Pffft, tens of millions? I don't think so. I bet the total number of 40k/WHF players worldwide still wouldn't quite reach a single million, let alone tens of millions.

 MRPYM wrote:
I have been seeing alot of people wishing GW went bankrupt or close to closing.

And I thought to myself if theoretically GW went belly up what would be the effects on the industry?

IMHO the effects I would see is that it would be harder to recruit new gamers to the industry> The reason being in my experience a lot of people I met started GW then started other games afterwards.

Without GW's exposure in malls and otherwise, I think the industry would see a decrease in new gamers.

All of this is just based on my own experience, so I could be wrong on how the industry actually works.

If GW went under, a new market leader would emerge. GW haters would temporarily be happy until the new market leader made changes to fit its new market share. The new market leader would offend some people with its changes and some people would be discussing how they can't wait for the new market leader to go bankrupt.

I would love GW to get taken over by a different company.

I get so frustrated with it. I absolutely love their products but I completely detest them as a business, it's a tricky one.

Welsh_Furey wrote:
Flgs dont have anywhere near the world wide coverage of gw

Maybe in the UK where GW has done their best to kick independent stores out of the market, but in the US (and elsewhere) GW stores are a tiny part of the gaming market. People had no problem building a healthy 40k community (along with other non-GW games) here without a single GW store within a 100+ mile radius, and the store GW opened hasn't really done anything to improve that community. If anything, MTG and roleplaying are the two things getting people into stores, take GW away and life would go on just fine with MTG/D&D/Warmachine.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:
If GW went down I would be pretty happy, because their products would absolutely not vanish, tens of millions of people play WH and 40k.

Pffft, tens of millions? I don't think so. I bet the total number of 40k/WHF players worldwide still wouldn't quite reach a single million, let alone tens of millions.

I'll take that bet. A single million?!

They probably have a single million in Europe. I'm sure we can find out a ballpark figure, but I'd put my house on the fact it's closer to ten mill than one. Surely about a million in America too, it's not like only one in three hundred people plays.

What would happen if GW went down? My best guess is it would use teeth.

Honestly? Someone would snatch the IP up. There'd probably be a period of time where the game is floating around in limbo, but someone would buy up the universes, the names, the models, and all the rest and figure out how to make a profit. If nobody else is interested, I'll quit my job and figure out how to make it work; but that's not going to happen, because there are plenty of smart people that can spend more money than I can on buying it. Might be better, might be worse, but it'd still be there. As far as how it would effect the hobby as a whole I have no idea. It really depends on how responsible GW is for bringing people into the gaming hobby, how much of that can be replaced with some intelligent marketing, and how much game stores (local B&M or online) depend on GW products for staying in business.

 mattyrm wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:
If GW went down I would be pretty happy, because their products would absolutely not vanish, tens of millions of people play WH and 40k.

Pffft, tens of millions? I don't think so. I bet the total number of 40k/WHF players worldwide still wouldn't quite reach a single million, let alone tens of millions.

I'll take that bet. A single million?!

They probably have a single million in Europe. I'm sure we can find out a ballpark figure, but I'd put my house on the fact it's closer to ten mill than one. Surely about a million in America too, it's not like only one in three hundred people plays.

I dunno. Personally I have a hard time believing that the miniature gaming/painting hobby as a whole has a million or more people into it, so I find it even harder to believe that GW games alone would have more than a million fans worldwide. I'd be interested in finding out the truth either way but I guess that's kinda off-topic.

The owner of the FLGS that I go to thinks that the current owners of GW are trying to sell. So could this sort of already be happening?

xxvaderxx wrote:

Welsh_Furey wrote:

 Supreme Kai wrote:
You're forgetting about FLGS.

Flgs dont have anywhere near the world wide coverage of gw if gw went under the whole wargames sector would suffer mabe not at first but in the long run new players would harder to hook into the hobby. At the moment most of the new players come into our world through gw.
MARK THESE WORDS LIKE IT OR NOT WE ALL NEED GW TO SURVIVE IN THE LONG RUN.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And im not a gw fan at the moment most of my gw stuff is either sold or on its way out.

Speak for your self, the embargo meant i started buying Chinese recasting and making my own. We dont need GW, GW needs US. GW might go away, the IP wont.

Stay classy Argentina.

 mattyrm wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:
If GW went down I would be pretty happy, because their products would absolutely not vanish, tens of millions of people play WH and 40k.

Pffft, tens of millions? I don't think so. I bet the total number of 40k/WHF players worldwide still wouldn't quite reach a single million, let alone tens of millions.

I'll take that bet. A single million?!

They probably have a single million in Europe. I'm sure we can find out a ballpark figure, but I'd put my house on the fact it's closer to ten mill than one. Surely about a million in America too, it's not like only one in three hundred people plays.

This is a very hard number to estimate just from personal experience because any gamer will have built in bias and know quite a few gamers some who play 40k and some who dont. In the US because population density can vary so much there could be regions were the percentage of people who play 40k is dramatically higher or lower.

I would be very surprised if a million people played 40k in the US but I would not be willing to argue for it one way or the other.

If I were about to buy any GW IP I would want cast Iron proof they actually are entitled to claim Trademark/Copyright/Design rights on the products they lay claim to .

The CHS Case has indicated that they may not actually hold all they claim to do , and I would be most uncomfortable in relying on their apparent assertion that they claim copyright on any and all things that are put into their fictional Universe .

I am guessing a prospective buyer may want to see how the CHS case goes - may be a defining moment for GW and have far reaching consequences

 Dynamix wrote:
If I were about to buy any GW IP I would want cast Iron proof they actually are entitled to claim Trademark/Copyright/Design rights on the products they lay claim to .

The CHS Case has indicated that they may not actually hold all they claim to do , and I would be most uncomfortable in relying on their apparent assertion that they claim copyright on any and all things that are put into their fictional Universe .

I am guessing a prospective buyer may want to see how the CHS case goes - may be a defining moment for GW and have far reaching consequences

You know, I thought it seemed odd that the words Citadel, Epic, Fanatic, Inferno, Inquisitor and Marauder were either ®, TM and/or © Copy written by GW.

 MRPYM wrote:
I have been seeing alot of people wishing GW went bankrupt or close to closing.

And I thought to myself if theoretically GW went belly up what would be the effects on the industry?

.

To be fair, the people who say that are very Ignorant of others who are dependant on GW (like myself) to have an income. 3rd party casters etc, bits sellers etc survive only because of GW. Although they may not be the most loved, they do more good keeping people in work then they do bad.

 jimbolina25 wrote:

 MRPYM wrote:
I have been seeing alot of people wishing GW went bankrupt or close to closing.

And I thought to myself if theoretically GW went belly up what would be the effects on the industry?

.

To be fair, the people who say that are very Ignorant of others who are dependant on GW (like myself) to have an income. 3rd party casters etc, bits sellers etc survive only because of GW. Although they may not be the most loved, they do more good keeping people in work then they do bad.

The effect on 3rd party casters and bits sellers would be bad BUT we are well past the point where GW's claim that they are the entire hobby holding any weight. If they went belly up tomorrow and their IP wasn't immediately bought out another company would step in to take the top spot (PP no doubt), and you would have dozens of other companies that are continuing to expand. FLGS owners would have a bit of difficulty guessing what games to put on their shelves but after a little bit of listening to their customers it should sort itself out. Most people aren't just going to drop the hobby all together unless they are unaware of the other game systems out there. Game systems that should thrive and grow with the industry even faster with GW out of the picture.

Your rulebooks and models will still exist, somebody will buy the IP, the world keeps turning. Simple as. I feel that there would be a major squeeze on FLGSs if big brands picked up the IP, but clubs would form.

As gamers, we most likely won't feel anything majorly different, the IP will definitely be picked up by someone, probably long before we read about it in the news even. There may be a drop in number of players on WHFB or WH40k, but TTG is growing as we speak, there'll always be people playing warmahorde, infinity, etc, your FLGS won't disappear simply because GW went down. And if, this is very likely, the new owner of the IPs run them better than GW, we may even see more players joining the hobby.

So, all in all, I couldn't care less if GW is still alive or not. Note this doesn't mean I wish for them to go down, that'd be childish.

With the constant price hikes and shoddy rule writing GW is pretty much digging its own grave ive quit 40K for the new Arkham City mini game however if GW went under i think it would be a good thing a fresh outlook on 40K

JWhex wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I think it depends on geography. America would be fine due to their high instance of FLGS. Places like Australia would suffer as game stores in this country are like fething Unicorn tears.

We do have a lot of flgs but quite a few of them are probably only marginally profitable. Where I live I have seen more than a dozen game stores go out of business since the early nineties. On the other hand a couple have thrived since then.

If GW went down it would certainly take more than a few game stores with it, especially in smaller towns and cities. In fact it would be a terrible blow to the more successful game stores that I know of and perhaps drive them out of business. Running any small business is extremely difficult and few could survive losing a lynchpin product.

I bet enough game stores would fold in the US that there would be a ripple effect harming other game makers as well.

none of the FLGS I have been to (in all the cities I've lived in) have really relied on GW's stuff, it never sold very fast, they very much more relied on MTG and Yugioh for the one back home.
No one plays Warhammer in my town, and the store doesn't carry much of it at all

Welsh_Furey wrote:

 Supreme Kai wrote:
You're forgetting about FLGS.

Flgs dont have anywhere near the world wide coverage of gw if gw went under the whole wargames sector would suffer mabe not at first but in the long run new players would harder to hook into the hobby. At the moment most of the new players come into our world through gw.
MARK THESE WORDS LIKE IT OR NOT WE ALL NEED GW TO SURVIVE IN THE LONG RUN.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And im not a gw fan at the moment most of my gw stuff is either sold or on its way out.

No.

In the long run the hobby will survive just fine without GW.

In the short term the loss of the market leader would hurt.

In the mid term someone else will take over that position.

In the long run... the hobby will likely be stronger, given a saner and more rational market leader.

If GW were to go out of business tomorrow then within two years there would be a new market leader.

There were folks that predicted that if TSR were to fall then RPGs would go away. (Some even said 'Mark my words!')

TSR fell.

Someone else took over the prime IP (which would also happen in the event that a twin tailed comet crashes through Nottingham).

The hobby got stronger. The property became stronger.

D&D continues. Gen Con continues. Little metal and plastic RPG figures continue.

Then the story began to repeat itself... the new market leader fell to hubris - after all, it's not as though other people were in a position to continue the older game, now were there?

The hubris blinded the market leader to the fact that yes, there was competition positioned to continue the older system.And that somebody picked up the reins without the market leader crashing and burning, just the title.

Pathfinder is going strong, and 4e... is being put out to pasture. There was almost a crash, but hopefully WotC pulled the reins up short in time - it is possible that D&D 5e will rise to compete with Pathfinder.

But, either way, the hobby will continue.

And the hobby will continue when Kirby has come to dust.

The Auld Grump

Just a quick note on the amount of table top war game players in the world.
From the last estimate of appx 5 million players world wide, appx 55% of which play historical games only.
Appx 25% play fantasy based games and appx 30% play scifi based games.

Of these sci fi games appx 40% play 40k.

This puts 40K players world at appx 600,000 to 800,000.

This is people who actually play 40k on a regular basis, not just buy some stuff from a GW store then give up on it a few months later....