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Ive looked at other games and they simply do not interest me. Its the look and fluff of 40K that keeps me around. However, I dont get out to game much anymore. GW's inability to properly update and balance the game combined with the flakiness of local players keeps it an at-home hobby for me.

 Ascalam wrote:
...It's the way of things with GW, and this is my less expensive hobby...

I agree here. I play guitar and I'm at the point that a new guitar will cost quite a deal more than a new army would. Hell, I also like computers and building a decent machine that will be outdated in six months just to play a couple of video games would cost the same or more than a new 40k or WHFB army.

The same quitters who quit last year and the year before are the same quitters who quit this year. They 'quit' because they want to brag on a forum how wronged they were, how everyone who plays are sheeple and how smart they are for quitting.

And they then let slip through threads when new models show up, "Oh, I quit, but I have to get that model." and then they seem to still be playing the game and say things like "Oh, I quit but I still play the game." Then 6th came out so they had to buy a new rulebook and handful of models to be legal but they still 'quit'.

The only people I know who have legitimately quit are the fantasy players, and that is because the ruleset is awful and theys imply don't want to play it. There are no real alternative uses for their models either. Those players have mothballed their armies and have stopped buying.

40k people are still injecting plasticcrack between their toes while saying they ragequit everything GW does anything.

Personally, Kickstarter took a lot of my 2012 money which probably would have gone to PP and GW. I buy models I am primary interested in painting and there have been some great new stuff. I am probably going to sell my fantasy O&G army (for a amazingly great deal if someone wants it) and just maintain with my 40k until a new model comes out.

I don't see why people need to 'quit' anything. It is not like you have to leave your job to work at another company and give 40k two weeks notice. There are plenty of models and games to play, and sometimes it is fun to change games. The truth is, if you enjoy 40k you will be back.

nkelsch wrote:
The same quitters who quit last year and the year before are the same quitters who quit this year. They 'quit' because they want to brag on a forum how wronged they were, how everyone who plays are sheeple and how smart they are for quitting.

And they then let slip through threads when new models show up, "Oh, I quit, but I have to get that model." and then they seem to still be playing the game and say things like "Oh, I quit but I still play the game." Then 6th came out so they had to buy a new rulebook and handful of models to be legal but they still 'quit'.

Well, to be fair I think that there are definitely some people who legitimately quit. When 6th edition hit, the local stores lost some people and gained others, just as they did with other edition changes. I for one quit 40k when 4th edition came out, playing Ætherverse, WHFB 6th edition, and Æ-WWII instead, as well as some homebrew rules. Once 5th edition was on the horizon, though, I jumped back in and have been having a blast since. I don't play the other games anymore, but I'd be happy to jump in if and when things changed-- and I'm slowly putting together an 8th edition Empire army!

That said, I've definitely identified some "usual suspects" here on Dakka who fit the pattern you've described. It always amazes me how much people on the Internet love to hate GW. I think some people could really benefit from realizing GW isn't what they want and moving on to another company instead of sticking with GW only to decry each new move.

If you really hate GW, bail out! There are other fish in the sea, and the quality level of all games will improve as more and more options crop up and games designers have to step it up in order to compete. By playing games from other manufacturers, you help the miniatures gaming hobby as a whole.

WH 40k is still going strong in my group.

The new game store near my home has 6-12 people in it every Saturday playing 40k.

I doubt I'll ever quit playing 40K, although I might stop buying rulebooks.

As for trends of it, I see about as many repeat quitters as I do quitter-haters - loudly decrying each other - on Dakka. Some people will quit and come back, some will quit for good, some will rage on vocal quitters, and others will tell vocal dissenters to quit. It's all part of a vital ecosystem.

I'm really enjoying 6th Ed 40K but have pretty much stopped buying new stuff - which is not a bad thing as more £10K over the last twenty plus years.

As always, the need for such strong stances on something as trivial as a hobby baffles me. Feel strongly about equality, justice, child abuse or rape or something, but really, am I the strange one for not getting as upset about my toys as I do about paedophile priests or suicide bombers?

GW are expensive, they sometimes do dumb gak, and White Dwarf sucks, but is there any need for words like embargo or boycott? Were talking about a multinational toy company, not an arms shipment bound for Gaza.

I dont buy too much stuff, but if i like sonething and its not outrageously priced, then sure ill think about buying said product, be it from GW or anything else.

My FLGS really only plays 40k and a little bit of Fantasy. I might switch if another game became popular.

I quit 40k completely 18 months ago and sold about 12,000 points of stuff (The entire of both my armies - including Squats and 'Imperial Army'), as i was just fed up of the prices and the way the game was going (particularly in my local area). I still carried on with the Black Library books though, and still played Necromunda and Epic/Space Marine.

Instead of 40k, I started playing FoW and Ambush Alley, and also a bit of Firestorm Armada and a few other games. I wouldn't have tried any of these before, though, 99% of my wargaming life since Rogue Trader had been 40K and it's spin offs.

Now, however, after seeing the awesome models in Dark Vengeance I have bought and built around 2500 pts of Dark Angels! I haven't played with them yet, so 6th may not be any better than 5th, but it's hard to keep away; I enjoy the setting and story of 40k so much.

So i've got the best of both worlds now - I can play with my mates when they have a big 40k game, but we can no also play all these new games that we really enjoy (and in some cases have learned from), and would never have even thought about trying before

It really isn't quitting in everyone's case. My mate for example. We just stopped playing the game when her nids were neutered. We didn't quit, or sell the models or do anything crazy. We just entertained ourselves with other games until we something drastic changed for 40k that would make it different, for better or worse.

I know a few people that refuse to play any other system but the 1 they are currently playing. I myself get bored(and in some cases frustrated.) if I only have 1 game to play. If one has multiple interests than one can just move on when one of the systems or metas or whatever changes. AND just as easily you can go back to it. Selling armies is silly imho unless it is done for space purposes. Similar to some of the car guys that build just to sell, you never get what you paid for out of it. Build it and enjoy it, even if it's only on and off.

I moved on from GW this year and started Flames of War. This is a personal choice though and I don't expect to lead the internet in a GW exodus.

I don't rule out a return to GW either, but I'm going to give FoW a good go for a year or so.

 Bat Manuel wrote:
8th ed. Fantasy is just plain bad. 6th ed. 40k is very similar and an obvious money grab so I stopped playing both. I still have the models because I like them, but playing just isn't fun.

This really. Both new editions of GW's main games are just plain money grabs geared towards teenagers, all the tactical positioning that was part and parcel of 6th / 7th ed Fantasy is all but useless now and 6th ed 40k has adopted some of the worst rules of it. Add to that that GW herself decided to ignore 20+ years of fluff in their newer rules and Codex and it was just too much for me.

I sold 6 of my armies and just kept my initial Dark Elves and Imperial Guard that were the armies that originally brought me into miniature wargaming back in the 90's, hoping against hope that maybe GW will again someday make a rules system geared for people that like to think during a game instead of just rolling buckets of dice.

I'm staying with warhammer as long as there are people to play, but my best friend has switched out of the game for warmachine after almost 10 years of playing together.

Well a quick look at the forum index can reveal trends...

A few years back it was 40k forums , WHFB forums, Specialist games forums, and historical games forums..

So GW or historical seemed to be all their was...

Look at the number of forums for non GW games currently on DakkaDakka...

And IF GW plc had maintained sales volumes since 2004 they would have had a turn over in excess of £300M

So either fewer people are buying into GW .(Thier core demoghraphic is new customers.)Or the same amount of people are just spending much less.

My community is going strong (the store actually doubled in size), however, it's an entirely biased viewpoint seeing as my community happens to be a GW Battle Bunker.

PhantomViper wrote:
Both new editions of GW's main games are just plain money grabs geared towards teenagers, all the tactical positioning that was part and parcel of 6th / 7th ed Fantasy is all but useless now and 6th ed 40k has adopted some of the worst rules of it. Add to that that GW herself decided to ignore 20+ years of fluff in their newer rules and Codex and it was just too much for me.

I sold 6 of my armies and just kept my initial Dark Elves and Imperial Guard that were the armies that originally brought me into miniature wargaming back in the 90's, hoping against hope that maybe GW will again someday make a rules system geared for people that like to think during a game instead of just rolling buckets of dice.

Huh, this seems like an odd claim. Positioning is much more important in 6th edition than it was in 5th edition, with position-based wound allocation and cover saves, models out of line of sight being unable to be hit, flyers being extremely constrained in movement and thus requiring careful planning as to their positioning, etc. What specifically makes you think 6th edition eliminates positioning or "dums down" the game?

 Kingsley wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Both new editions of GW's main games are just plain money grabs geared towards teenagers, all the tactical positioning that was part and parcel of 6th / 7th ed Fantasy is all but useless now and 6th ed 40k has adopted some of the worst rules of it. Add to that that GW herself decided to ignore 20+ years of fluff in their newer rules and Codex and it was just too much for me.

I sold 6 of my armies and just kept my initial Dark Elves and Imperial Guard that were the armies that originally brought me into miniature wargaming back in the 90's, hoping against hope that maybe GW will again someday make a rules system geared for people that like to think during a game instead of just rolling buckets of dice.

Huh, this seems like an odd claim. Positioning is much more important in 6th edition than it was in 5th edition, with position-based wound allocation and cover saves, models out of line of sight being unable to be hit, flyers being extremely constrained in movement and thus requiring careful planning as to their positioning, etc. What specifically makes you think 6th edition eliminates positioning or "dums down" the game?

Random charge range.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
Both new editions of GW's main games are just plain money grabs geared towards teenagers, all the tactical positioning that was part and parcel of 6th / 7th ed Fantasy is all but useless now and 6th ed 40k has adopted some of the worst rules of it. Add to that that GW herself decided to ignore 20+ years of fluff in their newer rules and Codex and it was just too much for me.

I sold 6 of my armies and just kept my initial Dark Elves and Imperial Guard that were the armies that originally brought me into miniature wargaming back in the 90's, hoping against hope that maybe GW will again someday make a rules system geared for people that like to think during a game instead of just rolling buckets of dice.

Huh, this seems like an odd claim. Positioning is much more important in 6th edition than it was in 5th edition, with position-based wound allocation and cover saves, models out of line of sight being unable to be hit, flyers being extremely constrained in movement and thus requiring careful planning as to their positioning, etc. What specifically makes you think 6th edition eliminates positioning or "dums down" the game?

Random charge range.

I still have yet to see a reasonable argument of how random charge ranges 'dumb the game down'. It's different, and people may not like it, but that's all I've heard - reasons why people don't like it. I haven't yet seen anyone explain how it dumbed the game down.

You can't choose a sub-forum that's largely about bashing Games Workshop and regard a poll there as valid in any sense.

nkelsch wrote:
The same quitters who quit last year and the year before are the same quitters who quit this year. They 'quit' because they want to brag on a forum how wronged they were, how everyone who plays are sheeple and how smart they are for quitting.

And they then let slip through threads when new models show up, "Oh, I quit, but I have to get that model." and then they seem to still be playing the game and say things like "Oh, I quit but I still play the game." Then 6th came out so they had to buy a new rulebook and handful of models to be legal but they still 'quit'.

The only people I know who have legitimately quit are the fantasy players, and that is because the ruleset is awful and theys imply don't want to play it. There are no real alternative uses for their models either. Those players have mothballed their armies and have stopped buying.

40k people are still injecting plasticcrack between their toes while saying they ragequit everything GW does anything.

Personally, Kickstarter took a lot of my 2012 money which probably would have gone to PP and GW. I buy models I am primary interested in painting and there have been some great new stuff. I am probably going to sell my fantasy O&G army (for a amazingly great deal if someone wants it) and just maintain with my 40k until a new model comes out.

I don't see why people need to 'quit' anything. It is not like you have to leave your job to work at another company and give 40k two weeks notice. There are plenty of models and games to play, and sometimes it is fun to change games. The truth is, if you enjoy 40k you will be back.

I dig this post.

I've played 40k since 1995 or so. I've also played many and I repeat many mini games(most now defunct), 40k has been the rock. This isn't just my opinion, its fact. What other mini game system has gotten bigger since the mid 90's? Really what system? O wait, there isn't one.

 Byte wrote:
I've played 40k since 1995 or so. I've also played many and I repeat many mini games(most now defunct), 40k has been the rock. This isn't just my opinion, its fact. What other mini game system has gotten bigger since the mid 90's? Really what system? O wait, there isn't one.

What about Warmahordes, which didn't exist in the mid-90s and is now the second most popular system?

There's been quite a few new systems get bigger since their release. Off the top of my head, Flames of War and Warmahordes have been around for a while now and getting bigger all the time, Infinity and Malifaux are growing rapidly.

The time of GW being the 'rock' of the industry is gone. Other companies are figuring out how to stay in business in this industry. It's not a bad thing at all - embrace it, and play more games.

Mid 90's friends, stay focused. This is the core of my point. I not knocking the new hot systems that are the new shiny object. My issue, I've been through many shiny object game systems. GW is still going strong and producing new rules and minis which is rare in my personal experience of nearly 20 years of table top.

 Byte wrote:
Mid 90's friends, stay focused. This is the core of my point. I not knocking the new hot systems that are the new shiny object. My issue, I've been through many shiny object game systems. GW is still going strong and producing new rules and minis which is rare in my personal experience of nearly 20 years of table top.

No games from that period are really around - that's not my point. Newer games have stuck around longer than games of that period did, even games of early 2000's. They have also, unlike most games of those periods, grown a lot more in the time they've been around. Unless something drastically bad happens financially to Corvus Belli, Privateer Press, Mantic, Wyrd, etc, those games will not be going anywhere. They're very well established now, the companies are profitable, and they're growing quickly.

The idea of going by past trends in the industry is the same mistake GW is banking on. It's not 1995 anymore. Stop expecting it to be.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Byte wrote:
Mid 90's friends, stay focused. This is the core of my point. I not knocking the new hot systems that are the new shiny object. My issue, I've been through many shiny object game systems. GW is still going strong and producing new rules and minis which is rare in my personal experience of nearly 20 years of table top.

It's not 1995 anymore. Stop expecting it to be.

Wow. Really? Condescending approach. Classy.

I play a lot of Warmachine/Hordes. I play 40k too, but sometimes use 3rd party figures in my armies. Not because I don't like the GW minis, but because I simply can't afford anything that isn't second hand most of the time. I have other priorities, like my job and my band, I don't really have the income to drop on two games. I like the 40k ruleset, it's simple, and intuitive, but I much prefer the combo play of WMH, maybe due to also being a MTG player. Just my two cents.

I started playing at the start of the 4th edition. I would play on and off with my friends, and most of us would "quit" not because of rules, prices, or players, but because there was simply no time. We would always get back into it, starting a new army and play at the shops. Sometimes players just drift off.

 -Loki- wrote:
No games from that period are really around - that's not my point. Newer games have stuck around longer than games of that period did, even games of early 2000's. They have also, unlike most games of those periods, grown a lot more in the time they've been around. Unless something drastically bad happens financially to Corvus Belli, Privateer Press, Mantic, Wyrd, etc, those games will not be going anywhere. They're very well established now, the companies are profitable, and they're growing quickly.

The idea of going by past trends in the industry is the same mistake GW is banking on. It's not 1995 anymore. Stop expecting it to be.

I think you're overstating the case a little. Malifaux, Infinity, and Warmahordes are all serious games, but let's not kid ourselves-- despite the recent Fantasy downturn, GW is still the main driver of miniatures gaming with 40k, and has also acquired the potentially valuable Hobbit license. Further, many other companies rely on GW to introduce people to the hobby, as none of them have even close to GW's level of outreach. Mantic would outright go out of business if not for GW-- their games more or less exist as a marketing tool to hide their models' GW knockoff status.

 Byte wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Byte wrote:
Mid 90's friends, stay focused. This is the core of my point. I not knocking the new hot systems that are the new shiny object. My issue, I've been through many shiny object game systems. GW is still going strong and producing new rules and minis which is rare in my personal experience of nearly 20 years of table top.

It's not 1995 anymore. Stop expecting it to be.

Wow. Really? Condescending approach. Classy.

No more than telling people to stay focused.

But that's my point. In 1995, GW was the only game that had staying power, because other companies didn't know how to approach the industry. It's now 2012, and there have been other games around for over 5 years now, which are not only growing, but encroaching into areas GW used to reign king (in particular, as much as I dislike their sculpts, Mantic and mass plastic production). GW is banking on these companies, like in 1995, to die out because their brand name will outlast them. They're expecting them to make the same mistakes companies of that era made that let GW remain king of the hill.

They're not going to. Mostly because of the internet. They know what people want, they have the information at hand on how to proceed further in the industry. The biggest competitior is, instead of embracing this era, sticking its fingers in its ears and hoping it goes away, while trying to force gamers back into how it was done 15 years ago.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a GW detractor. I'm still solidly a fan of their games, most of the wargaming product I buy is from GW, and rather insanely, a lot of it at GW Australia retail prices. However, I'm not blind to the rest of the industry, and I wish for their sake, GW wasn't either. Because I want them to stick around, because regardless of the flaws in their rulesets or the prices of their models, I love their games and want them to keep making them, because I want to keep being able to play them. They just need to start acknowledging the rest of the industry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kingsley wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
No games from that period are really around - that's not my point. Newer games have stuck around longer than games of that period did, even games of early 2000's. They have also, unlike most games of those periods, grown a lot more in the time they've been around. Unless something drastically bad happens financially to Corvus Belli, Privateer Press, Mantic, Wyrd, etc, those games will not be going anywhere. They're very well established now, the companies are profitable, and they're growing quickly.

The idea of going by past trends in the industry is the same mistake GW is banking on. It's not 1995 anymore. Stop expecting it to be.

I think you're overstating the case a little. Malifaux, Infinity, and Warmahordes are all serious games, but let's not kid ourselves-- despite the recent Fantasy downturn, GW is still the main driver of miniatures gaming with 40k, and has also acquired the potentially valuable Hobbit license. Further, many other companies rely on GW to introduce people to the hobby, as none of them have even close to GW's level of outreach. Mantic would outright go out of business if not for GW-- their games more or less exist as a marketing tool to hide their models' GW knockoff status.

I never said they did. It's obvious that none of them are as big as GW. IIRC, one of the designers for Privateer Press made a comment that every company in the industry wishes it has the customer base of GW.

That customer base is due mostly to age and better decisions in the past, however. They've gradually built up a huge following. While they've always been expensive, they've never been as badly priced as they are right now. They never had such a lack of hobby support as they do right now. While their customer base is still the biggest, they are making a lot of bad business decisions, while their competitors are making a lot of good business decisions.