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This isn't from the perspective of the player; we all want things. It's our prerogative to want things. But GW has more to consider than just our off-the-cuff whims and demands. Your primary consideration needs to be profitability.

I think I'd look at fundamentally changing the business model with regard to the codex and rules. GW is too reliant on big spikes of cash driven by the release of popular books. The transition that they claim they're making to a more balanced game supports an as-a-service model. Imagine if they did the following:

- Offer a monthly $4 subscription to the core rules in lieu of buying the main book, +$3 for each current codex you subscribe to, plus additional costs that may be associated with legacy/specialty rules. Allow the player to subscribe to the rules that they use.
- Provide a monthly release of rules and points updates (quarterly releases for rules changes, and monthly for errata / points-adjustments). This keeps them subscribing.
- Within that same cost, provide a Battlescribe-like functionality. Put in some additional value-add functionality, like being able to print out unit cards that includes all of the relevant rules, export army lists in PDF, view it on your phone etc.
- Offer a functionality for tournament organisers where players can register their lists. Have the site automatically confirm legality of the list and provide a mechanism for the TO to track success of different players. The goal is to use information gathered through this to drive your rules/points updates.

Now, you don't want to lose money from selling books. You still release codices, supplements and rules in book form. But for new rules you delay the web portal being updated by a period of time (3 months?). Tell customers that the rules in books are delayed to ensure the stability of the balance. Some people will buy because of fluff/artwork, and some just always like the newest shiny. However, book sales WILL decrease.

With regard to introducing such a change, you wouldn't do a hard cutover. You offer the functionality, but initially stagger the updates to be closer to Chapter Approved. Getting the Chapter Approved update for $7 in the first month would move a lot of people over.

Would following my plan help or hurt the GW business?

What are your ideas to move the GW business forwards?

£40 annual subscription to all rules and erratas (different subscriptions for 40k and AoS) Don't include fluff, leave that in the physical books.

Make more models rather than reduce codex entries.

I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

 JamesY wrote:
£40 annual subscription to all rules and erratas (different subscriptions for 40k and AoS) Don't include fluff, leave that in the physical books.

Make more models rather than reduce codex entries.

Maybe an annual subscription is better. You want to balance keeping the cost low so that people pick up the game, but you also don't want to leave money on the table. I'm not convinced either way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

/thread

Fire all of the people writing the rules, burn the entire game to the ground, and hire competent game developers to start over from scratch. Changing the packaging of the rules is not going to fix anything when you still have the same incompetent morons writing those rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sorcererbob wrote:
How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

How? By looking for a proven record of successful game design. And by removing the "casual at all costs" cancer that infests GW culture so that I can hire competent game designers based on their ability to make good rules, not idiots who believe that the rules don't matter because beer and pretzels.

Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

Plastic Sisters of Battle. That's what I'd do.

 Hollow wrote:
Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

And yet it's still falling well short of where GW could be, if they stopped putting out low-effort garbage, stopped taking their market leader position for granted, and made a legitimate effort to be the best game company in the world. But it's nice to see you handwave away legitimate criticism with "crying little neck-beards" instead of addressing the substance of GW's problems.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

This is never going to happen. Nobody wants the GW IP, and they certainly don't want to pay GW for it. Even if something like 40k could actually succeed (a debatable point) GW's customer base is too small and their brand recognition is far too limited for anyone to bother with licensing it when they can just rip off the same things GW ripped off and make their own grimdark space war movie.

 Hollow wrote:
Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

Totally this (apart from the film thing, which I still maintain is a horrible idea and should be swerved as hard as possible, but that's a different discussion). It's hilarious how many comments there are to the effect of "GW have no idea how to run a company; everyone should be sacked" flying around. Sure, there are certain things I'd like to see changed, but the way GW are doing things at the moment seems to be working pretty well for them overall.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

And yet it's still falling well short of where GW could be, if they stopped putting out low-effort garbage, stopped taking their market leader position for granted, and made a legitimate effort to be the best game company in the world. But it's nice to see you handwave away legitimate criticism with "crying little neck-beards" instead of addressing the substance of GW's problems.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

This is never going to happen. Nobody wants the GW IP, and they certainly don't want to pay GW for it. Even if something like 40k could actually succeed (a debatable point) GW's customer base is too small and their brand recognition is far too limited for anyone to bother with licensing it when they can just rip off the same things GW ripped off and make their own grimdark space war movie.

An where is that exactly? Where "Should" they be? In your expert opinion of course.
They put out high-quality models, rules and lore. Garbage? If that's what you think. Leave.
Market leader? But you just said they are garbage? Hmm. They aren't just market leader, they literally dwarf everything and anyone in the same realm many times over.
They are the best game company in the world (They do have some issues)
I don't handwave away legitamate critcism. I handwave away pathetic, cry-baby BS from smelly neckbeards which this forum has too much of.
Nobody wants GW IP? Apart from all those game companies of course.

 Nazrak wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
Not much at the moment. The last thing I would do is listen to crying little neck-beards on the internet who only complain about everything. With the highest stock value ever, great dividends, good cash flow and production at max capacity, GW is doing brilliantly.

I'd probably look into creating a decent partnership with a studio in order to bring the 40k IP to the big (and small) screen.

Totally this (apart from the film thing, which I still maintain is a horrible idea and should be swerved as hard as possible, but that's a different discussion). It's hilarious how many comments there are to the effect of "GW have no idea how to run a company; everyone should be sacked" flying around. Sure, there are certain things I'd like to see changed, but the way GW are doing things at the moment seems to be working pretty well for them overall.

I didn't come here to incite a flame war, but I'm starting to see who on this forum can present a well-considered answer, and who simply wants things like a child does.

hobojebus wrote:
How? By looking for a proven record of successful game design. And by removing the "casual at all costs" cancer that infests GW culture so that I can hire competent game designers based on their ability to make good rules, not idiots who believe that the rules don't matter because beer and pretzels.

I think a proven record of game design would be required for more senior game design roles currently. Assume that the existing senior guys pass that test. You clear house to change the culture -- fair enough. And then because you are management, you tell the new guys to design for tournaments instead of beer/preztels. I'm really interested though; why do you think that the designers (and not management) are getting in the way of touranment-balance? Do you think management are currently saying "design for tournaments" and the developers are replying with "Lol no, I do what I want"?

Why wouldn't you try instructing the existing developers before clearing house?

 Peregrine wrote:

Fire all of the people writing the rules, burn the entire game to the ground, and hire competent game developers to start over from scratch. Changing the packaging of the rules is not going to fix anything when you still have the same incompetent morons writing those rules.

This.

It sure would be interesting to see the complete and utter disaster that would come from firing all of the game developers. Thank God these fools have no chance at ever being in a position of power within GW.

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

It is a niche job, hiring people with a proven record is perhaps not so easy for a company with a record of exploiting the fanboy nature of its staff.

 Hollow wrote:
An where is that exactly? Where "Should" they be? In your expert opinion of course.

Selling in the range of MTG, D&D, video games, etc, not settling for making a modest profit every year in a niche market.

They put out high-quality models, rules and lore. Garbage? If that's what you think. Leave.

Lolwut. The models are decent, though often uneven in quality with some real WTF designs. The lore is good, but mostly because of the excellent work done ~20-30 years ago, and recent efforts have been inconsistent at best. And the rules are an absolute dumpster fire of bad game design, a masochistic experience that you slog through because you love the fluff and models.

Also, I'm glad to see we've reached the point of "if you don't love GW STFU and GTFO". I guess you'd like this forum to be nothing but a pro-GW echo chamber?

Market leader? But you just said they are garbage? Hmm. They aren't just market leader, they literally dwarf everything and anyone in the same realm many times over.

They're the market leader, in their niche market, but not by nearly as much of a margin as you think. FFG, for example, is at minimum a strong competitor and potentially out-selling GW in their niche (getting accurate data on this is difficult). And leading a market doesn't mean your product can't be garbage. McDonalds sells a ton of terrible burgers, but I don't think anyone would ever claim that their food is actually good.

I handwave away pathetic, cry-baby BS from smelly neckbeards which this forum has too much of.

Yep, just proving my point here.

Nobody wants GW IP? Apart from all those game companies of course.

Nice job moving the goalposts there. The context was movie and tv shows, not other game companies. And in that context the GW IP is of very little value, a fact that seems pretty well confirmed by the fact that terrible movies and tv shows keep getting made but nobody has bothered to do anything with 40k.

PS: all those other game companies? I wonder why most of the people buying the GW IP are small-scale developers of phone games, with products that are weak and immediately forgotten, while the biggest names in the industry have little or no interest in 40k.

 Hollow wrote:
It sure would be interesting to see the complete and utter disaster that would come from firing all of the game developers. Thank God these fools have no chance at ever being in a position of power within GW.

I agree. I think it's a misguided solution that causes a lot of short term problems. It assumes that the designers can't design, rather than the more-probable situation where they are being told not to design for tournaments OR they are choosing not to (either can be solved by adjusting instructions from the executive).

In addition, it has a few complexities:
- You can't just sweep them out in one day. You have some things in progress, and you have some delivery dates coming up. If you sweep, you miss your dates. That's a fact.
- You can rotate in-and-out, but that's how you destroy morale - everyone knows they're on the chopping block. Additionally, you risk leaving the "cancer", as Peregrine put it, in the company.
- You need to dodge unfair termination laws. Which means you need to make them redundant, and then create new positions that are materially different. You're kind of begging for a lawsuit, since your intention is to hire the exact same positions back (just under the guise of a different name).

I'm seeing few real-world solutions in this thread.

Dont have any ideas how to move GW buissness foreward, but if i could do anything, i would figure out who was in charge of ruining the FW points in the new CA. And put the exterminatus on him.

Expand manufacturing slightly so that the market is not constantly shorted. Limit new stuff that minimally ties in with established products. Encourage cross department communication. Push for failcast to be completely replaced so that those products will actually sell. Merge the fw rules team with the gw team on aos and 40k. And stop the special rules they impose on retail so the products can reach more customers/ give up on the fence stores they obvious don't case for anyways.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Plastic Sisters of Battle. That's what I'd do.

I knew this would come up. So, hypothetical: this forum is the board of directors. You want plastic sisters instead of a new release of the lowest-tier (in terms of sales) army on the roadmap.

(This is a director speaking now)
Are you suggesting:
a) Delay the other-army release (and hence, delay the next Space Marine release - this has serious dollars implicated)
b) Replace the other-army release with sisters (hence turning an existing army effectively into legacy)
c) something else?

And why do you think that sisters will be more popular than the lowest-tier? They haven't had a release for years, surely there is no one actually collecting them now.
(/director)

Peregrine.

Settling? They are the market leader in miniture wargames. Thats the area in which they started, they want to be in and have climbed to the top and have stayed there for 25+ years.

GW are easily worth as much as Wizards of the Coast (or when they were bought by Hasbro) They are doing well in terms of having the IP feature in computer games. Games which have been generally well recieved and popular.

Creating a senario where by the IP is properly used to generate interest for film and TV would be what I would focas on if I were an executive (which is what this thread was about ,if you hadn't forgotten, due to your hate-filled fog)






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brutallica wrote:
Dont have any ideas how to move GW buissness foreward, but if i could do anything, i would figure out who was in charge of ruining the FW points in the new CA. And put the exterminatus on him.

I thought you had lost all hope and were leaving the hobby? No more worries for you.

 Peregrine wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

/thread

Fire all of the people writing the rules, burn the entire game to the ground, and hire competent game developers to start over from scratch. Changing the packaging of the rules is not going to fix anything when you still have the same incompetent morons writing those rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sorcererbob wrote:
How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

How? By looking for a proven record of successful game design. And by removing the "casual at all costs" cancer that infests GW culture so that I can hire competent game designers based on their ability to make good rules, not idiots who believe that the rules don't matter because beer and pretzels.

It just isn't an 8th ed balance thread without Peregrine complaining about something.

Sorcererbob wrote:
It assumes that the designers can't design, rather than the more-probable situation where they are being told not to design for tournaments OR they are choosing not to (either can be solved by adjusting instructions from the executive).

I think the lack of competence has been abundantly demonstrated by this point. I don't think the upper management of the company cares about tournament rules vs. non-tournament rules, or even has any clue how to tell if a particular rule is good for tournaments. And the problems with GW's poor rules are just as bad for "casual" and narrative games as they are for tournaments. There's no target market that is being served well by the current 40k rules, such that we could say that GW's rule authors are doing a good job of something and the complaints are only from people who aren't in that target market. The rules are just plain bad.

- You can't just sweep them out in one day. You have some things in progress, and you have some delivery dates coming up. If you sweep, you miss your dates. That's a fact.

This is not really a problem. Burning the whole thing to the ground implies canceling all in-progress work, which would be redundant anyway with a new edition coming.

- You need to dodge unfair termination laws. Which means you need to make them redundant, and then create new positions that are materially different. You're kind of begging for a lawsuit, since your intention is to hire the exact same positions back (just under the guise of a different name).

I don't see why this would be a problem. Firing people for poor performance is always ok. You aren't firing them for discriminatory reasons or anything, you're just deciding that the work they are producing is not good enough and you're not going to keep paying them for it.

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
And stop the special rules they impose on retail so the products can reach more customers/

This resonates with me. I have to wonder if part of the current strategy is "cut out the middle man, make as many direct sales as possible through web channels".

 Hollow wrote:


I thought you had lost all hope and were leaving the hobby? No more worries for you.

I was taking a break yes, i can still write on dakkadakka as i please. And its a bonus that it annoys you.

 kastelen wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I'd fire the current devs and hire people with a clue.

/thread

Fire all of the people writing the rules, burn the entire game to the ground, and hire competent game developers to start over from scratch. Changing the packaging of the rules is not going to fix anything when you still have the same incompetent morons writing those rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sorcererbob wrote:
How? Presume that the current writers probably appear to have a clue in an interview.

How? By looking for a proven record of successful game design. And by removing the "casual at all costs" cancer that infests GW culture so that I can hire competent game designers based on their ability to make good rules, not idiots who believe that the rules don't matter because beer and pretzels.

It just isn't an 8th ed balance thread without Peregrine complaining about something.

Isn't that kinda the point though? It ISN'T an 8th edition balance thread. It a completely different topic (a good one I might add) which is being swamped by his negativity. It seems to me he would be doing himself a favour if he stopped with GW and 40k considering he hates it so much. (would be nice for the forum as well, to be rid of the constant moaning)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brutallica wrote:

 Hollow wrote:


I thought you had lost all hope and were leaving the hobby? No more worries for you.

I was taking a break yes, i can still write on dakkadakka as i please. And its a bonus that it annoys you.

It doesn't annoy me at all. I literally just came from the thread where you said you are going to flounce and here you are posting away about 40k. Not really sure what 'Taking a break' means?

But your moaning isnt helping much either Hollow, what makes you entitled to cry as the only one?


Yes it annoys you. Comeon, you dont even know what taking a break means

Basically:

* Hire better designers who actually use math/formulas to determine what works.
* Complete an app like War Room for Warmachine/Hordes that allows army building and has unit datasheets for a fee (either flat fee or subscription)
* Go to AOS model for units (i.e. datasheets are freely available), charge for additional things and focus on supplements to enhance the game, not "required" purchases to play.
* Rework the paint range to use dropper bottles, maybe partner with Vallejo.
* Move from the GW brick and mortar style to more of a franchise; give managers more freedom and flexibility to have more room, and support stores to have more like the hobby centers of old and less like an Apple store. Continue to open communication with independent retailers to stock and support the game.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:
- You need to dodge unfair termination laws. Which means you need to make them redundant, and then create new positions that are materially different. You're kind of begging for a lawsuit, since your intention is to hire the exact same positions back (just under the guise of a different name).

I don't see why this would be a problem. Firing people for poor performance is always ok. You aren't firing them for discriminatory reasons or anything, you're just deciding that the work they are producing is not good enough and you're not going to keep paying them for it.

The problem with performance management is that it takes a long time. In most companies it will be a conversation, followed by a period of months where you're performance-managing them. And then finally you can say "you didn't meet your objectives, your'e out". You can't just march them. And if you put an entire team on performance management at once, it's going to look a lot like the executives have unreasonable expectations. I'm not saying that you can't dodge the lawsuit, just that you're creating ambiguity because of the context.

Typically a performance management period would go for 6 months (in my experience). Let's say it's 3 months in this case. You've deleted everything in progress. You have a team for 3 months. Are you hiring the new team in that time? Or just idling the company for 3 months? If you're hiring the new team, what are you saying to the existing about their ability to get through performance management?

I don't mean to knit-pick, but these are real-world considerations.

Wayniac wrote:
Basically:

* Hire better designers who actually use math/formulas to determine what works.
* Complete an app like War Room for Warmachine/Hordes that allows army building and has unit datasheets for a fee (either flat fee or subscription)
* Go to AOS model for units (i.e. datasheets are freely available), charge for additional things and focus on supplements to enhance the game, not "required" purchases to play.
* Rework the paint range to use dropper bottles, maybe partner with Vallejo.
* Move from the GW brick and mortar style to more of a franchise; give managers more freedom and flexibility to have more room, and support stores to have more like the hobby centers of old and less like an Apple store. Continue to open communication with independent retailers to stock and support the game.

I'm still getting around to painting my 1 year old models so I don't have an opinion on it. Apart from that, this seems reasonable as long as it doesn't cause a giant wave of firing in GW's staff.



I'd add better prices for Australia and NZ.

 Hollow wrote:
Settling? They are the market leader in miniture wargames. Thats the area in which they started, they want to be in and have climbed to the top and have stayed there for 25+ years.

Being the market leader means nothing. If your market is a tiny niche then you still have room to grow, by expanding into a larger market.

GW are easily worth as much as Wizards of the Coast (or when they were bought by Hasbro) They are doing well in terms of having the IP feature in computer games. Games which have been generally well recieved and popular.

Lolwut. Are you seriously going to compare GW of 2017 to WOTC of 20 years ago?

And no, GW is not doing well in having their IP in computer games. The Warhammer: Total War game is the only major game they've had, everything else has been low-budget phone games with little or no presence in the market. Where is EA doing a Battlefront: 40k game on the scale of their Star Wars game?

Creating a senario where by the IP is properly used to generate interest for film and TV would be what I would focas on if I were an executive

As I said, that's an effort where you are doomed to failure. 40k is just not a viable IP for that. The creative goals of a game setting and a film/tv story are widely divergent. 40k is pretty good at the former, but terrible at the latter. And any effort to change the situation runs right into the problem that GW's IP has very little, if anything, that is original in design. Ripping off other IP works fine if your goal is to make a background setting, but it doesn't work for selling a license. Why would anyone pay to make a 40k space marine movie when they can go straight to the same concept of "what if Heinlein's space marines found space-Jesus" and make their own 40k space marine movie in all but name without paying GW anything?

The only way to make 40k as a viable film/tv IP is to grow the company massively in scale such that its brand recognition is actually valuable to the general movie/tv market. And that's incompatible with your stated belief that GW is already doing well enough as it is now.