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Well.. i figure this has to be said. yea, its "one of those" again, but i would like to avoid that. so please, lets try to avoid rants and complaints/bashing etc.


that said. i was browsinig the white dwarf daily, and notived the digital product page plug. this of course led me to look at what was on offer, and lo and behold - a ton of articles and guides on how to paint, model showcases, assembly guides and so on.

this also plays along with an interesting encounter. back when the new paints got released i stopped at a GW store for the most part the staff was friendly and i didnt get the "sales" push some have reported. as i was going in to check out the new paints, i had asked for a "painting demo" - with the intent of killing an hour while the wife shopped, and also to check out the new paints and so on. essentially i was told "no" - i needed to purchase my own paints, brushes, etc. they did not supply customers with demo paint or brushes, even for demos as they had too many problems with people "abusing" the privilege of "open paint" - now i get that... but back in the day when i started playing this was more then allowed. bring your own brush, but otherwise the paints are there and staff is on hand to offer advise and tips. (and were REQUIRED to be at least semi decent at painting.) i had zero issue paying for a brush or 2, (i needed some anyway) but was rather shocked at the refusal of acsess to some demo paints and a snap fit space marine to test on.

the above expierence, combined with how all the articles that used to be free on the website (remember those?) are now "paid digital downloads" really makes me wonder.

how can a company take such fast steps from being a decent gaming company to simply all about the money? yes, they are a corporation, and the corporation by default only cares about the money and how to maximize profit... but at what point does the removal of all "free advise" into "pay to play" become too much?

10 years ago, heck even 6 years ago things were nice. free demos on games or even painting and modelling in stores, (now its near impossible to even get a demo game) the removal of all things hobby related like the "how to" or "stage by stage" guides, even the "getting started" articles are gone. even though the latter was a pretty bad attempt at advertisment.

i guess the point im trying to make, is with the current state of GW and its trend towards making everything paid acsess... how long before other things that are free become pay to play? will they start charging to acsess the website? i could very much see having a "free page" wich only has basic ads and other info, and a paid subscriber page - in wich you need a monthly acsess membership to be able to see or even order advance or web only items, and even view the blog or FAQ.. the trend of the last few years is pretty clear... it looks like GW intends to remove any sort of free information of any kind and make people pay for what used to be free material for people to look at before they decided wich 1000$ army they wanted to purchase.

anyone else feeling this? (and no i dont mean the price increase on new release models... while part of the trend its been done to death so lets avoid that can of worms m'kay?)

I got an old stack of white dwarfs a while back where every other page was either fluff, a game suppliment, or a how to paint. looking at the new WD , all i see is ads to buy the new shiny, batrep where the new shiny wins, or how to paint the new shiny.

GW making its website paid-access wouldn't make much sense even from a GW point of view. Right now, the only things on the site are just catalouges/advertisements. The remaining pdf's/guides will be taken down inevitably with time.

I can foresee GW's with remaining tables in the future charging members for gaming table access however. Right now they are trying to drive away gamers and veterans as it is and that would be a good way for them to do so and at the same time score some bucks.

They do ask a lot of money but it's okay, I don't buy in bulk and I'm taking my army really slowly!

The thing is, GW offer something people want to buy and if people are willing to buy something they generally will and I think that's why they have so many things that you have to pay for.

My closest shop is pretty cool though but I have a friend who has a friend who used to accidently put the demo paints in his bag as a force of habit so it's understandable why they would want people to buy the paints first.


In all fairness though, I quite like GW but from the way the Dakka community talks about them it seems like they might be becoming the new EA of the table top world.

EA charges for everything.

I'm not sure if I understood the question correctly though, hope I did!

dont get me wrong. i enjoy the GW product, love the games and have and will continue to purchase models and army books i need.

i was simply pointing out how they have moved away from a gamer friendly, and free support style to a "charge for everything possible" formula - wich honestly is what happens with a large company selling a product. cant fault them for that, or for trying to earn money and profit. its their right. and if people dont like they wont buy.

what im asking, is where will it end? at what point do people stop buying in, and looking for alternate methods? when do you stop buying models for armies new or old? does the trend of charging more and more, and more everything possible cause a disturbance in the force?

perhaps im getting old... but i miss the good 'ol days where i could show up at 11am to my local store, buy a kit and maybe some paint, then assemble, paint and preapre the stuff for a game i have sceduled for 4pm, all while having a decent conversation / BS session with one of the 3 staff members on duty. now... thats not possible. if you dont buy anything your pretty much shown the door, and good luck using the table to build/paint anything... let alone for any extended period of time. and 3 staff members? really? lucky to find 1...

Maybe that's just your store? I know at my local GW they do painting demos and supply the paints and brushes themselves, and not only that but they're not all that pushy about selling stuff... or maybe it's just because I'm really friendly with the staff. In any case, the worst I'll get is "do you need glue, primer, brushes, etc" when I'm at the cash, and maybe a "hey you might wanna get a ____" but no big deal. Oh and at my GW they do typically have 2-3 staff on the floor, unless it's a later hour in the evening.

The store I used to visit did painting demos and let you keep the marine you painted.

Harriticus wrote:GW making its website paid-access wouldn't make much sense even from a GW point of view. Right now, the only things on the site are just catalouges/advertisements. The remaining pdf's/guides will be taken down inevitably with time.

I can foresee GW's with remaining tables in the future charging members for gaming table access however. Right now they are trying to drive away gamers and veterans as it is and that would be a good way for them to do so and at the same time score some bucks.

If stores seriously started charging to use their tables i would never play there again. Only reason i havent built my own gaming table is because current living arrangements (damn barracks) for the next 6-7 months prevents it....no space for it lol.
I always viewed the gaming tables as a sort of advertisement for current gamers. "Hey we can go to this place and play!" and after tha game go "Man i need more of these...oh wait here they are!"
Even if it was ~5USD for a game (not per player) i wouldnt do it. You can buy a couple large folding tables for ~30USD depending on where you look, use random things for terrain, or make terrain out of foam and rocks. I could make a decent gaming table for ~100-150 and not have to worry about finding a table again or paying to play.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

Harriticus wrote:GW making its website paid-access wouldn't make much sense even from a GW point of view. Right now, the only things on the site are just catalouges/advertisements. The remaining pdf's/guides will be taken down inevitably with time.

I can foresee GW's with remaining tables in the future charging members for gaming table access however. Right now they are trying to drive away gamers and veterans as it is and that would be a good way for them to do so and at the same time score some bucks.

If stores seriously started charging to use their tables i would never play there again. Only reason i havent built my own gaming table is because current living arrangements (damn barracks) for the next 6-7 months prevents it....no space for it lol.
I always viewed the gaming tables as a sort of advertisement for current gamers. "Hey we can go to this place and play!" and after tha game go "Man i need more of these...oh wait here they are!"
Even if it was ~5USD for a game (not per player) i wouldnt do it. You can buy a couple large folding tables for ~30USD depending on where you look, use random things for terrain, or make terrain out of foam and rocks. I could make a decent gaming table for ~100-150 and not have to worry about finding a table again or paying to play.

Barracks life was the reason I invested in the GW realms of battle board, fits exactly on a standard bunk and under it in its case when not, kinda pricey but hey its the hobby.

Back on topic, I never frequented any GW stores, since the FLGS offered more space and more variety of materials for my projects (scale models , foam board etc.), plus the only tables the gw store had were little 4 X 4 demo ones.

Lets just hope that GW does not suceed in its seemingly shoot self in foot practice of edging out the FLGS, thats were all my best instore gaming memories are

 dreamakuma wrote:
I got an old stack of white dwarfs a while back where every other page was either fluff, a game suppliment, or a how to paint. looking at the new WD , all i see is ads to buy the new shiny, batrep where the new shiny wins, or how to paint the new shiny.

This is probably the most acurate statement I have seen thus far. I too have tons of the old WD and they are just rediculously full of good information (besides those gakky lists) and fluff. Now it is new shiny this, 20 pages of new shiny that, here is some info about people who are better at painting the new shiny. OH I love the new shiny so much etc etc.


Secondly at my GW they have a huge cup of old brushes that people have donated and allow people to paint test models (besides me) mostly people interested in the hobby and these girls that come in that one guys lets paint over and over o.o its odd. Anywho when I asked if I could paint a test model (I wanted to start a space marine army) I was told no because they wanted to make sure they had supply for other customers. I can understand this because they know me around there that is where I go to play, and they know I have hordes of models that I could paint, and tons of paint. So I just shrugged it off as something that corporate had told them to deny to non-new players. So I guess you just got some bad luck but at my GW I have been met with nothing but friendly faces.

Inb4 SoloFalcon's obligatory "Oh this thread again" post!

Thats why i wont get the new WD and the reason i dont like the new codex style. Its nothing but fancy pictures to jack the price up. I can understand some of it in a magazine, but not 80% of the damn thing or more than a handful in my rulebook/codex.

I have tau/orks. Pretty sure when the new codexes for them drop they'll be just as expensive/waste of ink worthy as the CSM one. I want rules, not 70USD of pictures.

It does seem like their priorities have shifted towards shareholders. I mean when you have to answer to people like that good luck with trying to publish FREE plans to make this new tank turret called a Whirlwind. I think it would just be amazing if they added a few do-it-yourselfers but when a profit it expected it's far more logical to just sell the design rather than let people make their own and possibly not buy them when you make them... even though that seems to be the case right now with some of their armies anyway simply not getting kits for years. I do wonder if anyone still needed wolves for their SW when the official ones finally showed up.

Ultimately I do agree with the feeling of the topic. Though I think part of it is GW trying to figure out how do deal with the digital age and come out existing in the end. Not to mention digital printing becoming better and better. If I can walk into a Staples some day and print off troops for my army the current business model GW uses might not even be sustainable anymore. Probably good for them that wont be this year at least.

Unless it was stupid cheap i dont know if i would like the idea of printing off my army when i buy it because you'd lose the personalization part of your army since you'd get no extra bitz and everything would be pre-fit and angled so you cant even have a gun pointing a diff direction.
Hell, even if it was 5 bucks for 30 boyz i still dont think i'd like the idea of every boy looking exactly the same and i have no spare bitz to play with.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Hell, even if it was 5 bucks for 30 boyz i still dont think i'd like the idea of every boy looking exactly the same and i have no spare bitz to play with.

No, you print the bits specifically. We can already do that, so I would imagine that you'd get a set of printable bits and print out the parts you needed for your Boyz. Only real trick would be making money off it and being able to sell you those bits without paying something like $200 for the Ork Boyz plans (since you print out as much as you wanted).

Though I could imagine FLGS's maybe someday simply being licensed by companies like GW to print bits in store. They could even afford to sell the parts far cheaper without needing nearly as much warehouse space or many of the other investments needed to make plastic kits. A chunk of plastic can easily be Orkz or Eldar. Actually will surprise me if no one actually tries that, because at this rate I could see people going into printing... we already have people making other unexpected things this way.

I honestly think the issue is that they're creating more brick and mortar stores, and those are expensive (especially when you used to be mostly online). A lot more overhead, and with stores come staff. People are always by far the biggest cost in a business, and GW's hiring quite a few right now to man their stores.

And Vineheart, I don't know what service you're in but what you need is one of the folding Navy racks, you could set up the terrain under your bed and voila! pop it open whenever you want to play.

Airforce, ive been searching for something the right size i could pop out that was sturdy enough to play on that didnt cost an arm and a leg in the process...not much luck lol. However i only got ~8 months left in the service so im not going to worry about it...my next issue is finding local gamers in Nebraska when i get there lol.

Also, didnt they justify the Resin crap as justification for buying new titanium molds (saving them money to pay off the molds basically)?
Literally the only reason i like that crap is its easier to convert, but.....nvm i wont start another Resin vs Pewter argument.

well - with fairness to GW i have purchased 4 seperate finecast kits in the last while. goldfag maneater, a firebelly, an inquisitor with power sword/bolt pistol and a SM libby. every model was pretty decent. a good amount of flashing to trim off, but it was simple, and i didnt see any weird gaps or holes. the only issue was golgfags sword... it seems kind of thin to me, and thus fragile, but it was an easy job to swap it for another of the zillions of swords (wich allowed me to do the conversion i had planned anyway)

the finecast is easier to cut, and thus trim off heads, weapons, hands etc and convert them. the lighter weight also makes my case much lighter to transport. (and im not worried about a huge metal model crushing the weapon off the guys in the tray below) or him coming out of his spot in transport and smashing some poor plastic guy - or colliding with another metal model and wrecking both. the priceing i dont quite agree with - but hey i want a model gotta pay the bucks.

as for terrain the RoB bpard is an awsome deal. i got one when they where released, painted it up and its serving the purpose quite awsome. i plan on picking up a second to set up apocalypse table, or just have a variaty in my current setup. if you have a good 400-500$ i suggest getting one... easy to store and a great idea by GW all around. - not sure of the FW add ons, but they certainly look cool.

 DarthSpader wrote:

i guess the point im trying to make, is with the current state of GW and its trend towards making everything paid acsess... how long before other things that are free become pay to play? will they start charging to acsess the website? i could very much see having a "free page" wich only has basic ads and other info, and a paid subscriber page - in wich you need a monthly acsess membership to be able to see or even order advance or web only items, and even view the blog or FAQ.. the trend of the last few years is pretty clear... it looks like GW intends to remove any sort of free information of any kind and make people pay for what used to be free material for people to look at before they decided wich 1000$ army they wanted to purchase.

I cant resist the urge to say this but... Get out the tin foil hats everyone!

They dont care, we keep buying. Its as simple as that. Everyone stops buying, they notice theyre fething up and change their ways. Are we going to stop buying? feth no I need a Vindicator!

Thus the cycle of wallet rape and blatant disrespect and abuse of the customer base continues.

 d3m01iti0n wrote:
Are we going to stop buying? feth no I need a Vindicator!.

QFT. While I'm totally sick of these threads, this is the key point that should be the immediate response.

I've been in the GW hobby since about 2002, and involved in various online communities since roughly then. (anybody remember newsgroups?)

If there has been one constant to the online community, it's that there will always be people nostalgic for "the old days," when everything was better. So, pretty much no matter what happens, people are going to feel upset about changes.

That said, I visited my first GW shop only after years in the hobby, and maybe only a dozen times since. It's never been a big part of my experience.

I do know that I'm not gonna try a new paint line without sampling first, either with a few colors, or with a demo. Luckily, Reaper shows up to Origins and runs the paint and take, which I where I learned that their HD paints are, IMO, better than the old foundations.

I know we usually complain about GW (and mostly its right) the price rise has been pretty insane in recent years. The last one had me saying "Never again" To buying warhammer £75 for a battalion is just stupid. Yet the minute I got some money through from Uni I was down to GW buying some grey knight terminators.

Like addicts we can say we're going to drop it but never really do. Because when everything is said and done, like going for drinks or any other kind of thing you spend a lot of money on to make you feel good an expensive hobby is an expensive hobby. Its stupid but we will keep doing it till we have no money to continue doing it.

Anyway I know this thread isnt about prices just had to say that I still crawl back and pay the prices every time I have money spare then complain when i don't so ive voided my right to complain about it lol

Back on topic yes I was worried about this pay to do anything in GW thats been happening over the years, payed demo's i wouldn't put it passed them. The one thing I worry about most is if they start charging people to use the boards to play in store. That I can see happening and it wont be cheap.

£4 per player? for two hours?

I haven't bought anything GW for two years now. People do drop it, not as part of any 'boycott' or other grand display, but because they just get fed up of paying too much for too little product. It doesn't matter how powerful a model is in a game, or how many skulls are on it. If you pay £20-30 for a box and feel dissatisfied with the volume of plastic stuff that comes out then it's naturally that you'll lose interest. No one likes feeling they should have spent their money on something else. GW pricing announcements don't make me rage, just shake my head and wonder how much further they can keep pushing until people start losing interest in droves. The way GW put out legal threats and try to destroy other businesses, now that does get me angry because they are damaging the wider hobby.

I do other things now, like MtG, which I simply feel is just better value because I play it all the time. I still make and paint models, just not GW. MtG is as expensive as you want it to be, depending on your choice of formats and how seriously you want to take it, the minimum spend can be pretty low, but I get a lot of hours out of it for the money put in and have made some good friends. I suppose it could get a lot more expensive if I started buying valuable rares online, but I don't do that. All the valuable cards I have, I have got through boosters and trading.

When a new set is released I'll buy a booster box on heavy discount, after that at most I'll normally spend is £12 on a booster draft, so I get three packs, I get a decent pull on useful stuff and with luck I'll get a couple more packs to go home. And that's a whole night's entertainment. That's cheaper than going to the pub, definitely in London, and what does £12 buy you in GW? Not much, a single character mini is regularly priced at £12-15 now. Funnily enough I stopped off at a LGS today and saw all the new Reaper figures in plastic, previously metal, and was stunned by the prices. They are really very cheap, funny how when a miniatures company other than GW goes over to plastic results in stuff getting significantly cheaper. Everything about Finecast is another part of the GW experience leaving you feeling a bit cheated; palming off a cheaper poorer quality material for making figures with an accompanied price increase. Again, people who 'quit' don't boycott and ragequit, they just get disillusioned and spend money on other things.

I do like the Warhammer worlds and fluff as a concept, but all the creative and exciting contributions to the hobby are from gamers online and not GW, who even have been known to attack some fan sites and have reduced their magazine to a mere catalogue pushing pre-made everything, scenery, tabletops, etc. Really, if GW disappeared over night, Warhammer would continue to thrive online as gamers supported it with home made content. That might actually be better for the game than currently in GW's corporate hands. The communities for some specialist games have developed systems and support better than GW achieved, the Blood Bowl community is one example, and even there GW choked the last release of the Living Rulebook.

very true! people will continue to buy, thus reinforcing the need for price increase. itll happen, people wont care, and continues. im one of those people. i still buy ona regular basis... i just cant get as many kits, as my 60-100$ only gets 1 thing, instead of 2 or 3. such is life and economics.

i also agree that the "complaint threads" are numerous and many. this is not one, more of a "days of yore" and where is GW heading type of thing.

and i already have my GW brand "finefoil helmet" it comes with a light up skull, and 13 aquilas to ward of daemons and other warp powers. - while still looking stylish and exlempifying the hobby. yay!

 DarthSpader wrote:
how can a company take such fast steps from being a decent gaming company to simply all about the money?

Simple: shareholders. GW is owned by investors who see it as just another stock, and those investors don't care about things like "being a decent gaming company". In fact they probably know very little about the business besides GW's yearly financial statements. This is a situation that favors short-term profits over long-term development, cutting things like free demo paints saves a bit of money immediately and lets GW claim better numbers for the investors, while the long-term damage cause by the new policies (both in outraged veteran players and sales they fail to make to new players since they've given up an excellent marketing tool) is all going to happen sometime in the undefined future. And maybe it won't matter if they can keep cutting costs and raising prices a little longer and cover up the damage until all of the current management retire and/or the investors sell the company.