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Added 5th September: Confirmed that from September releases onward, only English and French names will be featured on ANY side of the boxes and blisters. Boxes released before September are currently not affected of course.

Hi,
as a nod to non-English customers, GW can't be bothered anymore to even put the correct names on the box or blister (with the exception of French). The message is clear: "You want to play our game, learn English, dude!"
Guess that is this year's marketing strategy to improve sales

This seems weird, and unnecessary. Maybe they are doing this because their sales are mostly based in area's with native English speakers, but that's not really gonna help expansion when you limit your game to those who speak a specific language.

Seems strange they would do that, maybe its just a sample pic before they were finished properly ?
Either way, the pictures on the boxes are much bigger, better and from more angles !

The German market is quite big. And here "Vanguard Veteran Squad" is called "Expugnatorgarde" and a "Librarian" is called a "Scriptor". Tell that a 14 year old.

And the pic is just an example. It is an official statement to stockists.

Maybe they figured since English steals liberally from every language in the world, most people will be able to figure it out?

It does seem very odd, but then again what has GW done lately with the product that hasn't seemed that way?

Aren't most books in English, though?

It's no different to most big brands

they want a single name the can use across the whole world
(and in the UK we lost quite a lot of long standing brand names to the European version)

(though I'd hope the contents etc are still given in a variety of languages)

I'd imagine they have went this route because their box art is now representative of what comes inside.

Pictures are universal, yo!

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:It's no different to most big brands
they want a single name the can use across the whole world

This is something different.
The Codex still calls them Expugnatorgarde and Scriptor. Only German customers have to guess, that these are the same as "Vanguard Veteran Squad" and "Librarian".

thenoobbomb wrote:Aren't most books in English, though?

The Codices and standard rulebooks are still in German. Still. But I guess, GW is abandonning all non-English markets because they think it is not worth it anymore.

It would surprise me if they reduced their support for their German market. As Kroothawk said, it's a big one, seemingly loaded with collectors who do not seem to mind dropping a lot of Euros on premium priced products.

The existence of a German Games Day in a year when GW dropped down to only four events worldwide is evidence that the market is significant. It's also worth pointing out that every GW that I visit in Germany tends to be busy. The stores that I have seen in the US and London have not been nearly as vibrant.

They could have regional boxes...

They gonna have a bad time to hit the French-Canadian market, there is market law that require to have a bilingual display on product. Right, I see ya coming, French-Canadian market is probably the smallest one in the entire world, why GW would care... ! It is not that hard to make a little subtitle any language under it. For me, this is just one more nail on the coffin that already been buried a while ago

I remember before, all languages were in the same box even the assembly manual had multi-language support. What happend to thoses translator... did they get fired?! lol Doing a Copy/Paste on a box and than Open Google Translator and change some words or find equivalent is not very pushy, it will show at least they care...

French is still on the box, now I know why (as the French speaking market is smaller than the German speaking one).

I think you guys are really getting worked up over nothing. Have you checked all sides of the box or are you just basing this on the front box pictures from the GW page?

 Kroothawk wrote:
And the pic is just an example. It is an official statement to stockists.

I always thought having all the different translations on the box looked messy and cluttered, but I suppose being an English speaker I don't appreciate it anyway.

If by "official statement" you mean "your interpretation", then yes.

Other languages may well not be present on the boxes, but you have posted this with no source. The new artwork on the boxes doesn't require it to be explained, it's pretty obvious what you're getting inside.

If they're still producing the rules in your language, what's the problem? I wouldn't let something as trivial as this put you off a hobby you enjoy. Obviously if everything came in blank boxes then it might be an issue.

Well, looking at this year's print (and digital) releases for 40k, the writing was on the wall for quite some time.

I can only imagine that this latest development is part of their ongoing campaign to "protect their IP", and someone thought this was easier if they only have to deal with a single designation per product.

Either that, or they took a look at the rest of the wargaming industry and thought they could get away with English-only rulebooks since a lot of the competition can, too. The biggest problem I see with that is that most competitors don't try to cater to early teens on a worldwide scale.

Not that I would miss the German translations, I always found them atrocious, but I can guarantee that ten out of thirteen guys in my local group will never buy an English rulebook of any kind...

Allod wrote:
Well, looking at this year's print (and digital) releases for 40k, the writing was on the wall for quite some time.

I can only imagine that this latest development is part of their ongoing campaign to "protect their IP", and someone thought this was easier if they only have to deal with a single designation per product.

Either that, or they took a look at the rest of the wargaming industry and thought they could get away with English-only rulebooks since a lot of the competition can, too. The biggest problem I see with that is that most competitors don't try to cater to early teens on a worldwide scale.

Not that I would miss the German translations, I always found them atrocious, but I can guarantee that ten out of thirteen guys in my local group will never buy an English rulebook of any kind...

I think you got a point here, especially with GW plan to focus on South America and Asia market for further developpement and only offring them english product for teenage people that bearly understand it. There is clearly a contradiction in what GW is aiming for. It is not that hard for one box to have multi-language like it was before. It's not annoying at all, it's just show that GW care about reaching the proper market with the proper product.

 Medium of Death wrote:
I think you guys are really getting worked up over nothing. Have you checked all sides of the box or are you just basing this on the front box pictures from the GW page?

This.

They have obviously gone down a minimalised cover route. The Big markets are well covered any one else will get a localised sticker I guess.

If not the giant pictures kinda help.

 notprop wrote:

They have obviously gone down a minimalised cover route. The Big markets are well covered any one else will get a localised sticker I guess.

...which I would tend to think as well if GW hadn't started to leave everything apart from the print version amrybooks / codices untranslated.

In other words, this not about the box art, it's about a VERY strong trend. (And I don't think anybody discussing this on an English-speaking forum is getting "worked up" about it, just for the record.)

 notprop wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
I think you guys are really getting worked up over nothing. Have you checked all sides of the box or are you just basing this on the front box pictures from the GW page?

This.

They have obviously gone down a minimalised cover route. The Big markets are well covered any one else will get a localised sticker I guess.

If not the giant pictures kinda help.

I'll find out when I visit my FLGS in Frankfurt to buy a box of Sternguard (if someone doesn't beat me to it). In any case, I can look at a new box of Space Marines or one of the new vehicles.

For those who may not remember, GW's usual practice is to print the titles in six different languages on every kit. That covers most of the world that has both a lot of disposable income and a lot of disposable time, though it was still a slap in the face of many of the European countries that have large numbers of gamers (Poland and Russia come to mind).

Your comment that pictures and English are enough isn't really spot on, but you may be right that the other sides of the box will have additional text in the other languages. Remember that you still need descriptions of box contents, appropriate customer age, and any required warnings.

I rather like the new box designs, they look cleaner and sleeker, like some sort of luxury product, plus I'm pretty sure it is still printed in different languages on the side of the box.

This must of been something we missed in the BRB or FAQ. Another 6th edition rules change just now catching on.

just kidding... stand down...

 BrookM wrote:
I rather like the new box designs, they look cleaner and sleeker, like some sort of luxury product, plus I'm pretty sure it is still printed in different languages on the side of the box.

They had to start shrinking the wordage on the boxes in order to fit the ten foot tall space marine models images on the front of their boxes....

BrookM wrote:I rather like the new box designs, they look cleaner and sleeker, like some sort of luxury product, plus I'm pretty sure it is still printed in different languages on the side of the box.

Yes, I agree with both of your points. Legal requirements alone will likely ensure the latter.

Byte wrote:This must of been something we missed in the BRB or FAQ. Another 6th edition rules change just now catching on.

just kidding... stand down...

Now I think you are just baiting Kroothawk. In his defense, I would much rather that he tell us too much news than not enough. I'm particularly enjoying the new Tyranid rumor thread and hope that the future Imperial Guard rumor thread will be even more interesting.

 JB wrote:

Yes, I agree with both of your points. Legal requirements alone will likely ensure the latter.

As far as safety disclaimers and product description go, sure, that's mandatory for products sold in the EU.

As far as the actual names go, though, there's no such requirement. Except for France (and Quebec?), which is probably why you still see the French unit name on the box.

That's a pity. I would like to see GW do a better job of attracting more players and collectors for Warhammer 40K in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany (and western Belgium). If only because I live in Germany and like to visit cities in the other countries.

While the gaming scene is weaker here, the modelling and painting community is amazingly good (and the gamers tend to paint their models more than US gamers on average).

...My first thought is that the box looks cleaner. I think its more appealing. Boxes with a-lot of text in 6 languages seem cheap and old. I like this better.

That is weird. The Eldar boxes in that style had 7 languages on the box and didn't look any worse for it.

I quite like having the names of the unit in lots of different languages. It's interesting/amusing to see the translations.