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A lot of you guys have been complaining (and rightly so) about GW's exorbitant prices and apparent lack of care for their customers.

But if the company went out of business, what would you do? No other wargaming company, miniatures or otherwise, has such a large influence as this company.

And it would be sad to see the 40k franchise and the Space Marines die out.

Opinions?

It wouldn't die completely, even if GW did go. There are so many people into the game that it would just continue, the second hand market is huge. The main things that would change really are that there would be no advancing storyline (pffft... not like there was one anyway ) and no new models, which would be a shame, but I don't ever see GW dying as a company. And even if they did go down, it's such a big thing in wargaming that someone somewhere would buy the rights to continue it.

Assuming it was only the miniatures company that tanked, I wouldn't be as upset about it now than I would have been back in the late 90s. I'd still be sad and think it a shame, but I've still got my Necromunda stuff, my 2nd Ed 40K books and there are other companies making minis that could stand in if I felt like building what few Orks I have from back when I played.

If Black Library went down, too, then I'd be hella miffed. I want to read about the Siege of Terra, dagnabbit!

I've been playing GW games since about 1988. That being said, GW is not the entirety of the hobby, and there are more tabletop wargaming options coming out every year.

In my opinion, if GW were to go belly up and disappear tomorrow, there wouldn't be a huge change in actual gaming for a while. Just because the company went away wouldn't mean all the miniatures and rules would disappear. A large group of people would attempt to continue playing, and there would be people who attempted to continue the game as a community effort for a while.

The biggest difference would be the removal of that competitor from the marketplace. People who were avid wargamers would need to find another outlet for their wargming dollar. Games like Warmachine/Hordes, Dust, Dark Age, Infinity, Malifaux, etc. would all see a dramatic uptick in their sales. One or more of these game companies would develop rules for larger games to pander to the players who want bigger battles than skirmishes.

So, in the long term, I don't think GW's disappearance would matter that much. In the 34 years that I have been a gamer, I have seen a lot of different game systems come and go, and the gamer community keeps chugging along just fine.

It's a pretty valuable IP, I reckon someone would pick it up. Might not resemble the company we know and *cough* love afterwards, but it'd shamble along in some form or other.

Nothing because the IP would be sold off to another company during the bankruptcy and they would likely fix the obvious distribution and marketing problems and carry on.

12thRonin wrote:
Nothing because the IP would be sold off to another company during the bankruptcy and they would likely fix the obvious distribution and marketing problems and carry on.

or

A company buys the IP, licenses it to another company that cannibalizes the ip by doing pre-paint collectable 40k. Maybe makes it less Grimdark in order to market to a greater population. Chibi prepainted collectable Spehs Mahrines.

or the IP gets sold they try to fix it, actually ruin it and what Saldiven said happens.

Which falls under:
and they would likely fix the obvious distribution and marketing problems and carry on.

The rules as they exist are one step above PPM quality at this point.

If it disappeared then I would save money as would stop buying. Almost makes me wish it would...

As far as I'm concerned part of the IP is already in good hands: FFG is doing a great job of keeping the verse interesting and serious, something GW is really bad at these days.

I dunno, I'm loving the HH Black Library books, I enjoyed the Chaos Space Marines codex, and am waiting impatiently for my copy of the Forge World HH book to arrive.

I have enough stuff to keep my busy for a long time.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
A lot of you guys have been complaining (and rightly so) about GW's exorbitant prices and apparent lack of care for their customers.

But if the company went out of business, what would you do? No other wargaming company, miniatures or otherwise, has such a large influence as this company.

And it would be sad to see the 40k franchise and the Space Marines die out.

Opinions?

Lurk more

I already play Warhammer Invasion and Dust Warfare from FFG, and after the kickstarter I've jumped heavily into KoW. Once Warpath has solid rules with a hardback rulebook, I'll play that too (and have 2-3 armies already, depending on the Corporation/Enforcer alterations). If GW goes under, I have started branching out and won't give two gaks. As others said, second hand market plus available books will keep it going for a little while. I won't be as sad to see GW go as I would have been just a single year ago.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
But if the company went out of business, what would you do?

Celebrate.

No other wargaming company, miniatures or otherwise, has such a large influence as this company.

And that's why. I don't want companies thinking that 15% annual price hikes, 80% higher prices in Australia, and treating women like non-entities is the road to success. If GW cannot do things right, they can at least be a cautionary tale.

I imagine some other company would pick up the IP asap and then offer to buy up molds/material in the bankruptcy process.

Can you imagine what it'd be like if FFG owned/published 40K, Fantasy, and the specialist games?

The premise that GW models are exorbitantly priced is false. In the grand spectrum of prices, they are slightly above average prices, but there are lots of companies who charge the same and more than GW for models of similar size and quality and the market still bears the price.

Being more than you like doesn't mean they are going bankrupt.

I didn't say they were going bankrupt. I was saying that hypothetically if they did go bankrupt what people think would happen.

They are a big fish in a pond teeming with other life. There's plenty of alternatives if they did somehow disappear. Personally speaking it would have been a big blow had they disappeared in the mid 90s, but these days I really don't care so much.

There's lots of new fish in the sea, Dreamforge Games for example is offering extremely competitive high quality plastic minis. I'd be sad to see GW go as I love their IP but for my actual plastic crack addiction my heart would go on.

nkelsch wrote:
The premise that GW models are exorbitantly priced is false. In the grand spectrum of prices, they are slightly above average prices, but there are lots of companies who charge the same and more than GW for models of similar size and quality and the market still bears the price.

Being more than you like doesn't mean they are going bankrupt.

Out of curiosity nkelsch, how long have you been into wargaming?

A lot of companies have based their pricing structures on GW, which has in years past had no excuse other than greed for putting up prices.

Sure some years they needed it to pay down debt, or to invest in bigger and better machines, or the occasional material price rise. But these would probably only account for maybe 50% of the above inflation price rises in the last 10-15 years I'd say (pure guestimate).

Hasbro would snatch up the IP through Wizards of the Coast in the chapter 11 asset sale. It would actually be a good thing.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Personally speaking it would have been a big blow had they disappeared in the mid 90s, but these days I really don't care so much.

Yes, this In the process of selling all GW stuff. Looking forward to moving on to other games. I no longer give two hoots what happens to GW

 Flashman wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Personally speaking it would have been a big blow had they disappeared in the mid 90s, but these days I really don't care so much.

Yes, this In the process of selling all GW stuff. Looking forward to moving on to other games. I no longer give two hoots what happens to GW

Well, I care in that if GW folded then it would take away the bread and butter sales from a lot of independent retailers. They might struggle to make up the difference elsewhere, so that could be be bad for the wider industry who rely on independent store owners.

davou wrote:
Hasbro would snatch up the IP through Wizards of the Coast in the chapter 11 asset sale. It would actually be a good thing.

This. And the community wins as GW's IP is finally in the hands of professionals who know how to produce a balanced and fun game.

 Grimstonefire wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
The premise that GW models are exorbitantly priced is false. In the grand spectrum of prices, they are slightly above average prices, but there are lots of companies who charge the same and more than GW for models of similar size and quality and the market still bears the price.

Being more than you like doesn't mean they are going bankrupt.

Out of curiosity nkelsch, how long have you been into wargaming?

A lot of companies have based their pricing structures on GW, which has in years past had no excuse other than greed for putting up prices.

Sure some years they needed it to pay down debt, or to invest in bigger and better machines, or the occasional material price rise. But these would probably only account for maybe 50% of the above inflation price rises in the last 10-15 years I'd say (pure guestimate).

Painting figures in middleschool (1990) and playing at the FLGS 1993 in HS.

The issue is there is no way GW will go bankrupt and everyone else in the industry will skip along without missing a beat. If there is an issue, the whole wargaming/mini industry will probably be hit like the comic book crash in the 90s. Yes, the poorly run companies go under and the others just downsize and are rebuilding for a decade, but if 'GW' went bankrupt, it will be because the industry collapsed, and almost all the companies also either go out of business or are highly impacted, and it will also mean there is probably a related reason why it all went crappy like a larger economic crash where our toys is the least of our worries.

Yes, someone will buy GW's IP, but we may be in a 5-10 year range where the IP sits shelved until whatever crashed the 'market' has corrected itself and there is a business model to resume using the IP, and even then it may not come back as a mini wargame but as a totally other form.

The idea GW will just land on boardwalk with a hotel built and the "price is right" losing foghorn sounds and only GW is 'out of the game' is not reality... And if it did happen, wargaming as an industry would probably be bankrupt, all our FLGS would go under or be scaled back and we would see a long period of time before wargaming comes back in any capacity.

I don't wish for that to happen as I don't feel like the whole market bottoming out is good for anyone. Having GW around actually helps everyone even if you hate GW.

To me it's already a concern when licensees and fringe subsidiary's do more for the GW hobby than GW does for itself.

I'm sure PP would buy GW out. I mean they make a much better product when it comes to minis, games, and tournament scene. You'll start playing 40K like you have a pair.

 Peregrine wrote:

davou wrote:
Hasbro would snatch up the IP through Wizards of the Coast in the chapter 11 asset sale. It would actually be a good thing.

This. And the community wins as GW's IP is finally in the hands of professionals who know how to produce a balanced and fun game.

Ugh, I would much rather a company continue the grimdark theme like how Catalyst Games kept Battletech true to its roots than what Hasbro's involvement has done to D&D.

To be honest if GW did go under I would personally be saddened.
Ive only been part of the hobby for about 8 ish years now? but the lore, factions and models are and have been pretty awesome. As some people have said though, if it did go under then it would more than likely be snapped up by another gaming company as wargaming has an increasingly larger presence on the market these days.