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 Xenomancers wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Sales is more or less a reflection of good advertising - critics are mostly bought and paid for - and fan reviews are as well.

If Oscar awards are given based on this criteria they are bought as well.

So let me get this straight
The sales numbers cant be trusted because an advertising campaign could be the cause for all of them
Critic reviews cannot be trusted because they could have been brought under the table
Fan reviews cannot be trusted because they could be bought or fake

But random Dakka user who says 8th is actually the worst thing ever....... That's what we should go on?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Again, Sales does not make a product good. And saying "reviews" make 8th good ignore the context that GW could have just made a box of flesh eating scarab beetles that were infected with Super Syphilis and it would still have reviewed better than 7th edition.

see above post. I just wanna make sure that i should rate the opinion of 5-10 Dakka posters higher than sales, critics and fans

I was speaking more about movies and Oscar awards. Someone made that analogy. It's not directly related to GW sales in the same way. As many other posters have points out. All GW needs to do to get sales is release content. During 7th edition when the rules were the most busted that they ever had been. They were getting huge sales numbers when they came out with formations. How many freaking razorbacks do you think Gladius formation sold them? The have such a loyal base of customers that will always buy their stuff. GW can't fail - even with failed rules for their games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vonjankmon wrote:
This thread made my morning. So many people who just seem to have ground their axe of hatred for GW so much that all that is left is the handle.

8th isn't perfect but it's good, better than they have had in years, we haven't seen price hikes recently that I am aware of, and GW is actually interacting with it's community like never before.

All of that and you're *STILL* upset? Who ever said that if GW cured cancer people would still be upset is spot on. Don't like the new rules don't play, it's the adult thing to do and it's what I did in 6th and 7th, I didn't like the rules and balance so I shelved my IG and DA, played other stuff and waited.

The codex balance is a joke. That means the game is not good.

This logic is just terrible. If all sales and profit depended on you would see a direct correlation of the number of products released per year to the capital made by GW. GW would also be able to exactly map out how much they would make in the upcoming year simply by looking at how many releases they had planned and being a business they would soon just churn out stuff with 0 forethought sense the amount released 100% correlated to the amount made. You can track the failure of 7th (declining sales/loss of top spot to competitors) and the success of 8th (increased sales/ customer satisfaction/ player base size/ market share/ect). I really hope you don't own any sort of company because if you think GW sales numbers is only dependent on number of releases you have a terrible buisness mind.

 LunarSol wrote:
Codex balance isn't bad outside of what is essentially the first set of them seemingly being designed for an environment where most people were still playing Index armies.

We haven't seen Knights hit the big tables yet, but from what I can tell it seems to be a great codex...one that many expected to be a total flop.

Finish the core codexes, polish up the older stuff, make a couple tweaks and we're good to go.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Codex balance isn't bad outside of what is essentially the first set of them seemingly being designed for an environment where most people were still playing Index armies.

We haven't seen Knights hit the big tables yet, but from what I can tell it seems to be a great codex...one that many expected to be a total flop.

Finish the core codexes, polish up the older stuff, make a couple tweaks and we're good to go.

I can see Knights having a big impact on the meta, but overall I think they'll struggle to hit the top tables just by virtue of running into something they can't really handle, like a heavy melee troop swarm in an objective heavy scenario or just someone with enough firepower to reliably delete a knight a turn.

Asmodios wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Sales is more or less a reflection of good advertising - critics are mostly bought and paid for - and fan reviews are as well.

If Oscar awards are given based on this criteria they are bought as well.

So let me get this straight
The sales numbers cant be trusted because an advertising campaign could be the cause for all of them
Critic reviews cannot be trusted because they could have been brought under the table
Fan reviews cannot be trusted because they could be bought or fake

But random Dakka user who says 8th is actually the worst thing ever....... That's what we should go on?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Again, Sales does not make a product good. And saying "reviews" make 8th good ignore the context that GW could have just made a box of flesh eating scarab beetles that were infected with Super Syphilis and it would still have reviewed better than 7th edition.

see above post. I just wanna make sure that i should rate the opinion of 5-10 Dakka posters higher than sales, critics and fans

I was speaking more about movies and Oscar awards. Someone made that analogy. It's not directly related to GW sales in the same way. As many other posters have points out. All GW needs to do to get sales is release content. During 7th edition when the rules were the most busted that they ever had been. They were getting huge sales numbers when they came out with formations. How many freaking razorbacks do you think Gladius formation sold them? The have such a loyal base of customers that will always buy their stuff. GW can't fail - even with failed rules for their games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vonjankmon wrote:
This thread made my morning. So many people who just seem to have ground their axe of hatred for GW so much that all that is left is the handle.

8th isn't perfect but it's good, better than they have had in years, we haven't seen price hikes recently that I am aware of, and GW is actually interacting with it's community like never before.

All of that and you're *STILL* upset? Who ever said that if GW cured cancer people would still be upset is spot on. Don't like the new rules don't play, it's the adult thing to do and it's what I did in 6th and 7th, I didn't like the rules and balance so I shelved my IG and DA, played other stuff and waited.

The codex balance is a joke. That means the game is not good.

This logic is just terrible. If all sales and profit depended on you would see a direct correlation of the number of products released per year to the capital made by GW. GW would also be able to exactly map out how much they would make in the upcoming year simply by looking at how many releases they had planned and being a business they would soon just churn out stuff with 0 forethought sense the amount released 100% correlated to the amount made. You can track the failure of 7th (declining sales/loss of top spot to competitors) and the success of 8th (increased sales/ customer satisfaction/ player base size/ market share/ect). I really hope you don't own any sort of company because if you think GW sales numbers is only dependent on number of releases you have a terrible buisness mind.

Do you agree or disagree that gladius formation release increased sales of razorbacks or not? Follow the same logic that when a codex drops - half the items on the webstore go out of stock even 2 weeks before the codex comes out...those are sales generated by content release. Why does this work for GW and not other companies? It simple. GW has a loyal group of cumstomers that GW has no competition for their money - so GW has almost not risk of losing money on a release like another company in the market.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Codex balance isn't bad outside of what is essentially the first set of them seemingly being designed for an environment where most people were still playing Index armies.

We haven't seen Knights hit the big tables yet, but from what I can tell it seems to be a great codex...one that many expected to be a total flop.

Finish the core codexes, polish up the older stuff, make a couple tweaks and we're good to go.

I can see Knights having a big impact on the meta, but overall I think they'll struggle to hit the top tables just by virtue of running into something they can't really handle, like a heavy melee troop swarm in an objective heavy scenario or just someone with enough firepower to reliably delete a knight a turn.

Knights gonna dominate IMO.

Does content release push sales? obviously
Does content alone generate sales? obviously no
You are refusing to acknowledge a huge increase in sales and profit by just saying "releases 100% drive GW sales", if this was the case 7th would have never seen GW decreasing profit margins and every year's sales would be an identically correlated line based on releases.
For example for what you're saying to hold true say 1 release would make GW $1 profit. Each year you would be able to calculate GW exact profit by multiplying the number of releases (x) by $1. obviously, this wouldn't work and is silly because the quality of releases (as well as huge amount of other factors play into the amount made).

Another example is looking at another company going the opposite direction then GW. Star wars probably has one of the largest most loyal fan bases on earth (much larger than 40k). Based on your logic each movie should just generate a proportional amount of money that they pump into it. Unfortunately, Solo just lost 100 million dollars because fans who people though "would just buy it because its SW" didn't. The reason why is fans do not like the direction the company is going in.

So GW doing the right things is going to increase revenue
Just like Star Wars doing the wrong things will decrease their revenue

 Sim-Life wrote:

Ignore is only useful for people who post literally nothing positive. Even BaconCatBug occasionally has something useful to say. Not often, but he does.

Besides, silencing/ignoring people with opposing view points is a terrible way to live your life. Sure when people post political stuff on Facebook I immediately unfollow them but this is 40k. It's more important than politics.

The ignore tool is really useful. You still read their posts but it reminds you that they're idiots just in case they're disguising it better than usual.

@Xenomancers

If GW could just poop out whatever and people will blindly buy then why did GWs profits consistently drop for several years prior to 8th? Almost like people disliked the game and GWs approach and didn't buy anything. But that can't be true, can it?

 Sim-Life wrote:
@Xenomancers

If GW could just poop out whatever and people will blindly buy then why did GWs profits consistently drop for several years prior to 8th? Almost like people disliked the game and GWs approach and didn't buy anything. But that can't be true, can it?

Because before 8th they had no real marketing or social media interaction. Marketing bs has a tendency of increasing sales.

 Sim-Life wrote:
@Xenomancers

If GW could just poop out whatever and people will blindly buy then why did GWs profits consistently drop for several years prior to 8th? Almost like people disliked the game and GWs approach and didn't buy anything. But that can't be true, can it?

Because blind fanboyism isn't literally 100% automatic buy everything GW sells. The fact that GW was publishing such utter trash during 7th edition and yet somehow continuing to make a profit (even if it was a lower profit than before) is a testament to how blindly people buy GW products. Without that level of blind loyalty GW would be dead after so blatantly shoveling out half-finished rules and doing nothing to fix the mess.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
@Xenomancers

If GW could just poop out whatever and people will blindly buy then why did GWs profits consistently drop for several years prior to 8th? Almost like people disliked the game and GWs approach and didn't buy anything. But that can't be true, can it?

Because blind fanboyism isn't literally 100% automatic buy everything GW sells. The fact that GW was publishing such utter trash during 7th edition and yet somehow continuing to make a profit (even if it was a lower profit than before) is a testament to how blindly people buy GW products. Without that level of blind loyalty GW would be dead after so blatantly shoveling out half-finished rules and doing nothing to fix the mess.

Or maybe they had a point and actually people that just wants to paint and model their models is a relevant portion of the demographic that buy Warhammer related products, so even if gamers where droping left and right that kind of people still sustained the company.

 Galas wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
@Xenomancers

If GW could just poop out whatever and people will blindly buy then why did GWs profits consistently drop for several years prior to 8th? Almost like people disliked the game and GWs approach and didn't buy anything. But that can't be true, can it?

Because blind fanboyism isn't literally 100% automatic buy everything GW sells. The fact that GW was publishing such utter trash during 7th edition and yet somehow continuing to make a profit (even if it was a lower profit than before) is a testament to how blindly people buy GW products. Without that level of blind loyalty GW would be dead after so blatantly shoveling out half-finished rules and doing nothing to fix the mess.

Or maybe they had a point and actually people that just wants to paint and model their models is a relevant portion of the demographic that buy Warhammer related products, so even if gamers where droping left and right that kind of people still sustained the company.

I think that 7th-8th has made it clear that 40k's selling points really are the background and the cool models. I don't understand how that excuses the poor writing on the rules side of things, though.

Blastaar wrote:


I think that 7th-8th has made it clear that 40k's selling points really are the background and the cool models. I don't understand how that excuses the poor writing on the rules side of things, though.

7th, sure. What they were good at sustained them. In 8th it goes a bit beyond just that.

Blastaar wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
@Xenomancers

If GW could just poop out whatever and people will blindly buy then why did GWs profits consistently drop for several years prior to 8th? Almost like people disliked the game and GWs approach and didn't buy anything. But that can't be true, can it?

Because blind fanboyism isn't literally 100% automatic buy everything GW sells. The fact that GW was publishing such utter trash during 7th edition and yet somehow continuing to make a profit (even if it was a lower profit than before) is a testament to how blindly people buy GW products. Without that level of blind loyalty GW would be dead after so blatantly shoveling out half-finished rules and doing nothing to fix the mess.

Or maybe they had a point and actually people that just wants to paint and model their models is a relevant portion of the demographic that buy Warhammer related products, so even if gamers where droping left and right that kind of people still sustained the company.

I think that 7th-8th has made it clear that 40k's selling points really are the background and the cool models. I don't understand how that excuses the poor writing on the rules side of things, though.

But if you ask the dakka enlightened the fluff and models got worse in 8th, but income is up massively. The main issue here is a vocal minority who don't like 8th (or anything from GW in some cases) relentlessly complain while most people just take it for a game of toy soldiers that's now more accessible and get on with enjoying it.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Do you agree or disagree that gladius formation release increased sales of razorbacks or not? Follow the same logic that when a codex drops - half the items on the webstore go out of stock even 2 weeks before the codex comes out...those are sales generated by content release. Why does this work for GW and not other companies? It simple. GW has a loyal group of cumstomers that GW has no competition for their money - so GW has almost not risk of losing money on a release like another company in the market.
.

Partially true. The profit-generation from table top wargames in general comes from 'new waves' of stuff. Gw, privateer press, Corvus beli, wyrd, warlord, and whoever you care to name need to push 'new stuff' 'new rulez' to push stuff. Pointing to gladius is missing the point. I remember during the dark days of the summer of discontent, and people were saying how beyond the next space marine codex, what did gw have to push. They'll always find something to push. They have to. Every Wargame-making company has to.

Regarding the loyal group of customers that gw has no competition for their money - you are partially right.There is the old business anecdote that 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your customers. Thing is, since fifth, and maybe earlier, gw had been haemorrhaging the other 80% of customers at a fantastic rate. It was a common enough commentary piece on the regular 'gw financials analysis' threads that essentially, fewer and fewer people were spending more and more money on less and less product just for gw to keep a relatively stable sales -iirc and for ease of brain, let's say £100 million - it was a bit more or less, depending on the year but essentially, with yearly price hikes, and gw eventually accelerating the release schedule, they were still just about making the same amount of profit, despite cutting, refining, economising and streamlining everything thry could internally. Reading between the lines, it was as plain as day that fewer and fewer people were spending more and more money on less and less product just for gw to keep a relatively stable sales. Gw were cutting down to that hardcore of 20%. The problem is, they were getting to the point of 'critical mass' where below a certain level of active players, activity falls off a cliff. The people that were left buying into the game a few years ago were responsible for keeping gw level, they are not responsible for the surge in sales/interest that has been pushed by eighth, and roundtree's various initiates and changes in direction, or the massive boom in their share price and profits. A lot of it is people that left editions ago coming back. Or frankly, gw making it easier and more attractive to bring in new blood. That helps enormously. You have the exact opposite in privateer press warmachine and hordes gamesmanship at the moment in thst they are so beginner unfriendly that it is very difficult to actually get into the game at this point.

Deadnight wrote:
Regarding the loyal group of customers that gw has no competition for their money - you are partially right.There is the old business anecdote that 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your customers. Thing is, since fifth, and maybe earlier, gw had been haemorrhaging the other 80% of customers at a fantastic rate. It was a common enough commentary piece on the regular 'gw financials analysis' threads that essentially, fewer and fewer people were spending more and more money on less and less product just for gw to keep a relatively stable sales -iirc and for ease of brain, let's say £100 million - it was a bit more or less, depending on the year but essentially, with yearly price hikes, and gw eventually accelerating the release schedule, they were still just about making the same amount of profit, despite cutting, refining, economising and streamlining everything thry could internally. Reading between the lines, it was as plain as day that fewer and fewer people were spending more and more money on less and less product just for gw to keep a relatively stable sales. Gw were cutting down to that hardcore of 20%. The problem is, they were getting to the point of 'critical mass' where below a certain level of active players, activity falls off a cliff. The people that were left buying into the game a few years ago were responsible for keeping gw level, they are not responsible for the surge in sales/interest that has been pushed by eighth, and roundtree's various initiates and changes in direction, or the massive boom in their share price and profits. A lot of it is people that left editions ago coming back. Or frankly, gw making it easier and more attractive to bring in new blood. That helps enormously. You have the exact opposite in privateer press warmachine and hordes gamesmanship at the moment in thst they are so beginner unfriendly that it is very difficult to actually get into the game at this point.

In principle I agree with this - but I am not totally sure the numbers are right. I suspect GW's sales of "Timmy's First Tactical Marine box+paints" continued to hold up and I reckon this represents a huge proportion of that 80%.

The idea there is no competition to GW is weird.
That may have been true a decade ago - but not today. I don't quite know exactly when it happened - but in about 2013-2016 vastly more people in my FLGS seemed to be for X-Wing, or Warmahordes or Malifaux or Infinity. Anything basically than playing GW games. You saw this on the tables - and you saw it in the company financials.
Most of them - apart from some of the X-Wing variants, and I think they are in danger of splitting the community - are pretty much dead now - or at least have seemingly been driven from the store's tables. I don't know if its backed up by sales figures, but I think 3rd edition would seem to have been a disaster for Privateer Press. Also - at the danger of doing a Kirby - I think the model quality compared with GW has collapsed.

Tyel wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Regarding the loyal group of customers that gw has no competition for their money - you are partially right.There is the old business anecdote that 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your customers. Thing is, since fifth, and maybe earlier, gw had been haemorrhaging the other 80% of customers at a fantastic rate. It was a common enough commentary piece on the regular 'gw financials analysis' threads that essentially, fewer and fewer people were spending more and more money on less and less product just for gw to keep a relatively stable sales -iirc and for ease of brain, let's say £100 million - it was a bit more or less, depending on the year but essentially, with yearly price hikes, and gw eventually accelerating the release schedule, they were still just about making the same amount of profit, despite cutting, refining, economising and streamlining everything thry could internally. Reading between the lines, it was as plain as day that fewer and fewer people were spending more and more money on less and less product just for gw to keep a relatively stable sales. Gw were cutting down to that hardcore of 20%. The problem is, they were getting to the point of 'critical mass' where below a certain level of active players, activity falls off a cliff. The people that were left buying into the game a few years ago were responsible for keeping gw level, they are not responsible for the surge in sales/interest that has been pushed by eighth, and roundtree's various initiates and changes in direction, or the massive boom in their share price and profits. A lot of it is people that left editions ago coming back. Or frankly, gw making it easier and more attractive to bring in new blood. That helps enormously. You have the exact opposite in privateer press warmachine and hordes gamesmanship at the moment in thst they are so beginner unfriendly that it is very difficult to actually get into the game at this point.

In principle I agree with this - but I am not totally sure the numbers are right. I suspect GW's sales of "Timmy's First Tactical Marine box+paints" continued to hold up and I reckon this represents a huge proportion of that 80%.

The idea there is no competition to GW is weird.
That may have been true a decade ago - but not today. I don't quite know exactly when it happened - but in about 2013-2016 vastly more people in my FLGS seemed to be for X-Wing, or Warmahordes or Malifaux or Infinity. Anything basically than playing GW games. You saw this on the tables - and you saw it in the company financials.
Most of them - apart from some of the X-Wing variants, and I think they are in danger of splitting the community - are pretty much dead now - or at least have seemingly been driven from the store's tables. I don't know if its backed up by sales figures, but I think 3rd edition would seem to have been a disaster for Privateer Press. Also - at the danger of doing a Kirby - I think the model quality compared with GW has collapsed.

Warmahorde are in a weird place. Their models sculpts are improving drastically but their prices are getting to Kirby Era GW levels and the materials are pretty awful. Now that 8th has been a success I think we'll go back to the status quo of 40k dominating everything. Privateer Press seems to be trying to kill it's own game by making it over-expensive and as unfriendly to new players as possible while Infinity, Malifaux etc were always going to be too small and niche to compete and that just kind of builds upon itself. The more 40k dominates the more people will play and the less competition they'll have. It was brave of PP to try and capitalize on 40ks decline by release Mk3 but they screwed it up so spectacularly they may have killed their own game. I don't follow X-Wing but didn't it also do something recently that required people to buy upgrade packs or something for a new edition? I dunno, I don't follow X-Wing.

@Xenomancers I disagree that being OP helps a units sales performance. YMMV but most meta chasers I know are people thet either already had a huge colllection acquired oiver several years or people buying secondhand. Especially in the case of old units like Razorbacks.

IMHO the opposite does hurt a units' sales being woefully underpowered.

Year after year the financials (untill last year) made clear that Gw had falling sales. They upped prices on products. (Nowadays they just make newer stuff more expensive), cut internall costs via reststructuring and still showed less profit. (Tough they never had a red year since I think 2009?). The conclusion seems obvious they had falling sales. They turned that around throughout the last 1,5-2 years. And IMHO that's mostly because of better community interaction.

Whatever you think about 8th it is better balanced and easier to pick up than 7th. Whatever you think about how succesfull their efforts are, you can't deny they do more community interaction. (Okay they came from 0 but still.)

8th basically brought me back into the hobby after I left it in 40k 4th edition/WHFB 7th ed.

I can't really compare 8th to 5/6/7th but compared to 3rd and 4th it's better in almost every single way, especially the way people play it. Back in the day I hated playing 40k in my local area because everyone just wanted to do 1500 point pitched battles and whoever killed more points won. It was the absolute worst way to play the game but all of the actual missions in the rulebook and elsewhere were not encouraged or a really core part of the game.

Don't get me wrong I can see the flaws in 8th and have a big wishlist of things I'd like to see changed and since getting back into the game I am a bit salty that the two armies I play right now (SM and Necrons) kind of struggle. But I can't say I've not enjoyed any of the games I've played so far. I even got tabled on turn 3 by a Slamguinius list last week and it was still a lot of fun and I learned a whole lot from it and I could even see ways in which I could have drawn the game out longer or maybe even won.

 Earth127 wrote:
@Xenomancers I disagree that being OP helps a units sales performance. YMMV but most meta chasers I know are people thet either already had a huge colllection acquired oiver several years or people buying secondhand. Especially in the case of old units like Razorbacks.

IMHO the opposite does hurt a units' sales being woefully underpowered.

Year after the financials (untill last year) made clear that Gw had falling sales. They upped prices on products. (Nowadays they just make newer stuff more expensive), cut internall costs via reststructuring and still showed less profit. (Tough they never had a red year since I think 2009?). The conclusion seems obvious they had falliong sales. They turned that arounf throughout the last 1,5-2 years. And IMHO that's mostly because of better community interaction.

Whatever you think about 8th it is better balanced and easier to pick up than 7th. Whatever you think about how succesfull their efforts are, you can't deny they do more community interaction. (Okay they came from 0 but still.)

Largely agree, but hot units *do* see a sales bump. See for example previously pap Exocrines that went OOP the second they were deemed even slightly OP, and good luck finding Hive Guard to buy in many places too! That GW is missing out on sales due to production capacity woes is on them.

Warmahorde are in a weird place. Their models sculpts are improving drastically but their prices are getting to Kirby Era GW levels and the materials are pretty awful. Now that 8th has been a success I think we'll go back to the status quo of 40k dominating everything. Privateer Press seems to be trying to kill it's own game by making it over-expensive and as unfriendly to new players as possible while Infinity, Malifaux etc were always going to be too small and niche to compete and that just kind of builds upon itself. The more 40k dominates the more people will play and the less competition they'll have. It was brave of PP to try and capitalize on 40ks decline by release Mk3 but they screwed it up so spectacularly they may have killed their own game. I don't follow X-Wing but didn't it also do something recently that required people to buy upgrade packs or something for a new edition? I dunno, I don't follow X-Wing.

After introducing the 8th ed, the tendency goes clearly in the direction to 40k. I agree that PP could have made more out of their game when players withdrawed from 40k in the years 2013-2016. But PP has missed this opportunity. MK3 didn't make the game better. It shifted the point values and introduced new glaring weaknesses. So everybody in my gaming group is about 40k these days. No change in sight.

I don't follow X-Wing but didn't it also do something recently that required people to buy upgrade packs or something for a new edition? I dunno, I don't follow X-Wing.

People are waiting for 2.0 of the rules that promise to fix a lot of issues in 1.0. That's at least what my friends tell me who are hardcore into X-Wing. I think it is pretty normal for things to slow down as people wait for a new release. I know that 40k took a short dip while everyone was waiting for 8th edition at the time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Regarding OP and the general narrative in the thread my simple answer is: 40k and AoS are fun, good games. They may not tickle everybody's fancy, but that's a subjective thing. For me 40k and AoS represent games that I can have fun with while also testing my mettle/army. Also, beautiful models for the most part.

In my neck of the woods 40k has been doing really well with people enjoying the game a lot. AoS is also picking up steam quickly, especially after they announced 2.0, with quite a few old WHFB players rejoining. Best of all? Everyone appears to be having fun with the games. People are playing, having fun, making jokes, and testing each others' skill. There isn't really much else I could ask for, and for that I just want to personally thank Games Workshop for doing such a wonderful job of getting people together to play.

Bosskelot wrote:8th basically brought me back into the hobby after I left it in 40k 4th edition/WHFB 7th ed.

I can't really compare 8th to 5/6/7th but compared to 3rd and 4th it's better in almost every single way, especially the way people play it. Back in the day I hated playing 40k in my local area because everyone just wanted to do 1500 point pitched battles and whoever killed more points won. It was the absolute worst way to play the game but all of the actual missions in the rulebook and elsewhere were not encouraged or a really core part of the game.

Don't get me wrong I can see the flaws in 8th and have a big wishlist of things I'd like to see changed and since getting back into the game I am a bit salty that the two armies I play right now (SM and Necrons) kind of struggle. But I can't say I've not enjoyed any of the games I've played so far. I even got tabled on turn 3 by a Slamguinius list last week and it was still a lot of fun and I learned a whole lot from it and I could even see ways in which I could have drawn the game out longer or maybe even won.

Sounds more like an issue with the people in your area rather than an issue with the rules.

All I see is the success of marketing, marketing that GW has done for the first time in over 20 years, it’s no real surprise that you start making more money when you start advertising to a larger audience.

So well done GW, marketing is successful!

 Formosa wrote:
All I see is the success of marketing, marketing that GW has done for the first time in over 20 years, it’s no real surprise that you start making more money when you start advertising to a larger audience.

So well done GW, marketing is successful!

It's more than just marketing though, although that is definitely a factor. It's a complete revolution in how they communicate and interact with their customers.

Stux wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
All I see is the success of marketing, marketing that GW has done for the first time in over 20 years, it’s no real surprise that you start making more money when you start advertising to a larger audience.

So well done GW, marketing is successful!

It's more than just marketing though, although that is definitely a factor. It's a complete revolution in how they communicate and interact with their customers.

Which is still just a matter of promoting their product better, not offering a better product.

Stux wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
All I see is the success of marketing, marketing that GW has done for the first time in over 20 years, it’s no real surprise that you start making more money when you start advertising to a larger audience.

So well done GW, marketing is successful!

It's more than just marketing though, although that is definitely a factor. It's a complete revolution in how they communicate and interact with their customers.

It’s all done through the medium of marketing though, not a single reply they have made on Facebook is an honest and open one, they are all done through the lense of “you cannot say this, it will hurt our image” or “standard marketing response to query”

Every medium they have used to communicate with customers has one goal, sell more product, and they have done an amazing job at that, even going so far as to convince people that they have produced superior products or changed as a company...

They've also changed how they present and produce their product. So whilst it's mostly marketing, It's more than just they make good adds. They are trying to improve their procces and interaction. So it is marketing in broadest possible sense encroaching onto design.

 Formosa wrote:

Stux wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
All I see is the success of marketing, marketing that GW has done for the first time in over 20 years, it’s no real surprise that you start making more money when you start advertising to a larger audience.

So well done GW, marketing is successful!

It's more than just marketing though, although that is definitely a factor. It's a complete revolution in how they communicate and interact with their customers.

It’s all done through the medium of marketing though, not a single reply they have made on Facebook is an honest and open one, they are all done through the lense of “you cannot say this, it will hurt our image” or “standard marketing response to query”

Every medium they have used to communicate with customers has one goal, sell more product, and they have done an amazing job at that, even going so far as to convince people that they have produced superior products or changed as a company...

I don't think that's very fair, and is overly cynical.

Of course they are a business, and so they have to sell product, grow, and make money. Their activities ultimately have to be financially justifiable. No one is going to argue against that.

But things like the Bug FAQ and other hotfixes to the rules in response to issues in tournaments and such. That's not simply marketing, it's not just to push product. I've met these people, genuinely it is a drive to make the game better and more fun, and it's behaviour we haven't seen quite like this from GW ever before.

Bosskelot wrote:
8th basically brought me back into the hobby after I left it in 40k 4th edition/WHFB 7th ed.

I can't really compare 8th to 5/6/7th but compared to 3rd and 4th it's better in almost every single way, especially the way people play it. Back in the day I hated playing 40k in my local area because everyone just wanted to do 1500 point pitched battles and whoever killed more points won. It was the absolute worst way to play the game but all of the actual missions in the rulebook and elsewhere were not encouraged or a really core part of the game.

Don't get me wrong I can see the flaws in 8th and have a big wishlist of things I'd like to see changed and since getting back into the game I am a bit salty that the two armies I play right now (SM and Necrons) kind of struggle. But I can't say I've not enjoyed any of the games I've played so far. I even got tabled on turn 3 by a Slamguinius list last week and it was still a lot of fun and I learned a whole lot from it and I could even see ways in which I could have drawn the game out longer or maybe even won.

Same here; came back after a long lul after the terribleness of 6th ed.

I like 8th, and I like how GW is making a conscious effort to patch and fix stuff, even if some of it is knee jerk. Plus GW's models are awesome.... I know they're pricey, but god are they awesome.

So what's the excuse now? We're not REALLY enjoying the game, we've just been fooled by the guy with a flashy suit and slick hairstyle into THINKING we enjoy the game?