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 Gashrog wrote:

In fact, the period between the release of 3rd edition (1998) and Lord of the Rings (2001, though the article erroneously says 2002) was the slowest period of growth GW has ever had:
http://www.iii.co.uk/news-opinion/richard-beddard/games-workshop%E2%80%99s-revenue-problem (scroll down for revenue chart)
Whilst GW's 'exponential growth' period would be 2nd edition, during which its revenue quadrupled.

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You appear to be conflating the growth of 40K and the growth of GW... They're not necessarily directly linked.

GW's revenue reporting doesn't tell you how many people are playing their games, just how much money GW are making from it.


3rd edition saw a fairly wide expansion of GW's player base. Although it may not have been as big an expansion as people remember... because that same time period also saw the opening up of the internet to 'regular' people, allowing gamers to connect with other gamers around the world. While this allowed for an even greater spread of hobby discussion, it also possibly exagerates how much bigger everything became. Some of it was genuine expansion, some of it was doubtless just gamers becoming aware of other gaming groups.

 Azreal13 wrote:

-40k and fantasy where closer linked and warhammer fantasy was HUGE. Seriously you could just walk into a store and play a game at any Friday or Saturday. This feeded 40k.

Citation needed, IME Fantasy has always been the red headed step child to 40K, without figures this is pure speculation, and I don't think it's speculation that's particularly well supported by anecdotal evidence.

Very much a regional thing. WHFB was never as big in the US. Through the 90's, though, it was certainly at least as, if not more, popular as 40K in Oz and the UK (and I believe through Europe, but might be wrong there).

The two games weren't 'closely linked' by that point, though. 2nd ed 40K and 4th(?) Ed WHFB had used practically the same ruleset, but the next edition of each game moved them off in fairly significantly different directions.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

-Smack in the middle of the years of the editions of Epic 40K was also great for the setting, as well as Battlefleet Gothic. Necromunda, too.

Necromunda was 2nd edition, and was gone well before 3rd ed dropped.

And from what I recall, Battlefleet Gothic didn't really do fantastically compared to the other specialist games, and Epic 40K took a long time to get up to steam - pretty much didn't take off until they started adding back in all of the detail that had been stripped out for the change from Space Marine/Titan Legions to Epic 40000.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

I know it was 2nd edition (I owned it from launch, as well as Gorkamorka) but I thought it was still around at least a little after 1998 (3rd edition) because that's when some of the later gangs came out? I thought things like the Redeemer, Guilder gangs, Arbites squads(with the Gorkamorka style vehicle rules) etc came out after I graduated in 2000, around when Inquisitor stuff was being released.

That would have been around the Specialist Games era, when they brought it back. It never really regained a foothold, though, as it was too hard to get most of the stuff for it.

kburn wrote:

GW had a forum too (!!!) and were one of the leaders in taking advantage of the technological revolution (!!!) with online shops, etc. I think too much flaming of GW went on, and they closed the forum and drew themselves inwards..

GW's forums were a prime example of GW not making the most of an available resource.

Instead of using the forums as an avenue to engage with their customers, they set them up and said 'There you go, talk about our stuff!', and aside from the very, very occasional post from the studio in the Games Development section, that was pretty much the extent of their involvement with it. Volunteer moderators took care of deleting anything that was too offensive, when they happened to see it, but other than that it was just let to run wild.

People (rightly so, IMO) expected that the 'official' forums would be a place to get their issues heard and responded to, and instead they just met a wall of silence from GW... and so voices got steadily louder until they started drowing out any worthwhile discussion, and GW closed the whole thing down, claiming that other websites offered better venues for discussing their games.


Which is crazy talk. It might be true for small, boutique companies that simply don't have a big enough following to keep a forum ticking over... but for a company the size of GW, to tell their customers to get off their lawn and go talk about their stuff somewhere else ... I just can't even comprehend what sort of drugs would have to have been involved for that to seem like a good idea. Particularly given that GW are well aware of how vicious other forums can be, where they're concerned.

A properly moderated forum with active involvement from the studio would be an incredible resource for encouraging people to participate in the 'GW Hobby'. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.


But no... go over there and talk about us instead, while we ignore you all and continue to assume that you'll buy whatever we decide to serve up.