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The latest mid-year report by GW created a lengthy discussion here and on many other boards with players discussing what's wrong with GW and what they think needs to be done to fix what they believe is a broken ship. I realize the internet is the location of the vocal minority, where people happy with something rarely go to voice their enthusiasm, but the disgruntled let their voice be heard, however, in all the noise there lies the truth.

All over this board are posters who claim to have abandoned using GW products, games, systems, or whatever. My question for those of you that no longer play or have significantly reduced your involvement in the hobby, what would it take to get you back into the fold?

If GW announced tommorow that they would slash prices across the board, would you be back? How much of a price cut would it take?

What if prices stayed the same but GW started fully explaining their price increases with clarity instead of arbitrary increases?

What about if prices stayed they same but they announced a complete overhaul of the rules with more focus on internal and external balance amongst the rules in each system?

Is there anything that would get you back into the fold? Or are you too far gone to come back?

Serious price cut and a really solid/fun ruleset.

Okay, but what's a serious price cut?

I'm going to jump in before the 400 'price cut' comments and say this (as an Australian who would be paying Australian prices no less):

They don't need to slash prices left and right. Rules and starter sets need s price cut but that's it.
They need to raise the value (ie quality) of their products to match the price. Right now I can pay $96 for a finecrap bloodthirster from the 90s that is just an awful model, or I can pay $90ish bucks and get an amazing resin deamon model from Meirce (or any one of a few companies actually).
There are these sorts of things all across GWs line, if they want to make the best models in the world, and charge people for the best models in the world, that's great but make models better than the ones your competitors are selling, especially if they are selling them for 40% of the price you are.

In addition to that the rules need a complete overhaul. Make them tight, make them balanced and make them usable in competitive, pick up games instead of just assuming everyone will be playing with a close group of friends in their basement and capable of talking through any problems that crop up like reasonable people.
'4+ it if you don't know' does not grant free reign to print before you proof read, it is not a feature to be celebrated, it does not make your game flawless. It is a fallback to clean up a few outlying problems before they are FAQed, nothing more.

As I haven't bought anything GW in 2 years other than a single box of deathwing knights and a codex from my FLGS when the new DA codex came out, I'd have to say a price cut, AS WELL as bringing market prices in line with the rest of North America.

The Canadian dollar is almost on par with the US, but we have a 20% markup on everything. As such I have to get a 20% discount at my FLGS just to bring the prices on par to US MRSP prices, which is crazy.

And that's just to buy their product. It would be another thing entirely to get me to step into there shops again to buy my plastic crack

A price cut would be nice, say about 10% across the board, but it alone would not be enough, nor would it be necessary. What would really get me back into it would be for them to embrace the internet, attempt to engage their customers and FLGS's, and basically stop treating their lifeblood as if they're their enemy.

I also think that a scaled-down, less expensive paperback version of the rulebooks and codecies would be nice; $120 just for the rules is a bitter pill to swallow. Better playtesting would also go a long way. I'm not expecting a super-tight, uber-balanced tournament based ruleset, but I'd like it if they could make it so that every army had multiple viable options when it comes to building lists, and would stand a fair chance against other lists.

I'm also not terribly fond of the "all random, all the time!" thing they seem to have going on. Like a Daemon vs. Tyranids game would have, according to the rules:
Random scenarios with random deployment and random objectives and random terrain with random effects, the objectives would be worth random values and also have random effects and the Daemons would have their random warp storm table and units randomly show up from reserve while the Tyranids have random synapse effects and everything charges random distances and all the psykers get random powers.
Obviously I weighted this a bit by choosing two armies with the most egregious random elements, but there's still a bit more than I'd like, even in something like Dark Eldar vs. Space Marines.

Some randomness is obviously necessary and exciting. A decent amount of random elements can make things interesting. But I think it's all a bit much, even in WHFB, let alone 40K.

With WHFB I'm also not a fan of the fact that it's balanced around such gargantuan armies, and magic in 8th, in the few games I played, seemed to be the absolute deciding factor. I'd like to see magic toned down without being completely gutted, and I'd like to see the game scale better at smaller sizes.

If the value of quality sculpts is what I pay now and strictly higher price is for better sculpts, I would have to continue paying those prices.

If I accept a price reduction in GW sculpts and get back an inferior product, I would not want to buy from them.

That being said, prices are inflated due to costs in manufacturing and making a return on the product's margins for profit, so I would have to see what the real value of making a model really costs before I ask them to slash prices.

Fair pricing across markets and currencies would go a long way in my book.

Our cousins in Australia, NZ, and Canada are paying far more for a product despite their currencies being on par with the dollar. Even when you factor in shipping, it still doesn't explain why some items are 50% more expensive.

Although rules balances would be nice, I really think there is a loud vocal minority complaining about this, and the majority don't really care. If they really wanted to balance rules and make the game more appealing to a larger audience, they would have to dumb it down pretty hard in my opinion. As it is, it's almost impossible to grasp the game initially without someone explaining it to you step by step, even if you read the rules cover to cover. Hating on individual army rules at this point comes from hyper competitive players that want to beat face everytime they play.

Yeah, I get my bits from a guy in France...

He puts them all in a nice padded box, charges me less than $3.00 CAD for shipping.

GW? $25-30... depends. Unless you spend over $75.00 but that's just like saying here buy one get one other cheap thing for free, since the unit you came for will cost you nearly $75 with shipping anyways...

Shipping from the states? Same thing, some shops online want $15!? While another shop charges me $8.00 for the whole lot?

GW can't even beat the ebay shysters!

Much better rules, smaller game sizes, and a commitment to ongoing customer satisfaction.

Are the models very expensive? yes
Would it matter a lot less if full games were 500-1000 points? yes

Love the topic, here is my contribution.

I used to play 40K but have basically given up on GW due to price, rules, and competition.

Price: I was content with the 2009 pricing when I was able to get a stormraven for around $55USD, a squad of 5 Deach Company for $27CAD. Those were my acceptable pricing. I really don't think I am being unfair because the competition is paying similiar prices. Take Warmachine for example, their large models costs $100US, but the game only allows to field 1 anyway, where as Stormravens I can field as much as 3 of them. I'm willing to pay $160 for 3, but not $300 for 3.

Rules: I hate the current rules in terms of both price and rules balance. especially the current ebooks and dataslates. There is just simply too many booksets to carry around for 1 game. Not to mention how expensive they are (cypher rules at $17.99CAD???)

Competition: Other wargame companies are simply too tempting compaired to GW, they offer either better rules or cheaper models or even both. GW is pushing a 1-click tyranids army for $2000CAD? with that kind of money I can buy entire model range of a competition wargame, proboly with better and more balanced rules as well.

Resin models, no GW only policy and nicer prices. Along with some info on what the company is up to and what to expect.

I buy from other companies because the detail on the models along with the prices are almost always superior

riburn3 wrote:
what would it take to get you back into the fold?

I have a fairly long post written about this, but for legal reasons I'm waiting to see if Letters to Penthouse publishes it first.

If GW announced tommorow that they would slash prices across the board, would you be back? How much of a price cut would it take?

About 50%. Seriously, it was a struggle paying $30 for 20 guys back in the day. GW is going to have to hit WGF pricing for me to come back.

What if prices stayed the same but GW started fully explaining their price increases with clarity instead of arbitrary increases?

I don't care about BS excuses. And I would never believe them.

What about if prices stayed they same but they announced a complete overhaul of the rules with more focus on internal and external balance amongst the rules in each system?

I used to buy GW products to model and paint. Rules wouldn't matter at all. Even so, most guys I know are fine using free rules from the internet if they can buy quality plastic models at good prices... So: no slashy, no cashy.

Is there anything that would get you back into the fold? Or are you too far gone to come back?

50% would do it.

Or the return of Battlefleet Gothic at 2002 prices, minus 20% for hurt feelings.

Yes. Price slash across the board. Better models too.

Anectdotal story: Back in '01 I got the 1st LOTR boxed set for Christmas. When my Mother in law found out what it had cost (about $60 USD at the time) she flipped her lid over how expensive it was. (she does not play wargames of any kind)
Moral: When someone from the outside looks at GW prices its no wonder fewer people start playing their games. Yes, there's inflation and all that but the Hobbit boxed set was more than double the price of the first boxed set. Stop the gouge!

If their plastics were about 1/3 of cost they are now it would seem more realistic IMHO.

For me it would be 2 different issues related to prices:

1. Lower them in general about 25% overall.

2. Stop pricing items out according to how many they expect a person to buy. A predator tank does not cost an extra $13 in plastic to make instead of a Rhino, and Sternguard plastics don't cost 2.5x as much to make as tactical marines.

I don't play competitively at all so rules I generally don't care about. I'd like to see some story progression(how long can it be the year 2522?) and see armies all actually get updated before new editions roll out like we did in 6th for WFB.

I'll also accept the resignation of Tom Kirby, Allen Merrit, and Matt Ward.

I could stomach the prices if the game was fun to play. It isn't.

 Alkasyn wrote:
I could stomach the prices if the game was fun to play. It isn't.

Fair enough, but that's incredibly subjective. Some people define fun in the hobby as modeling and painting. Some define it as spending a casual afternoon with friends playing the game in a relaxed setting, and some define it as steamrolling everyone with the most cheesed out list possible. I look at a lot of the Tyranid whining on the message boards here and elsewhere and see people upset that they can't make a cheesed out list to counter other cheesed out lists. At the casual level where most of the player base exists, these are hardly issues.

Talking specifically about 40K as I don't play WHFB.

I have enough figures that I don't need to buy more -- perhaps a couple of new edition models like the Riptide but basically I don't need or want to buy whole armies. A price cut on the model kits wouldn't motivate me. I am much more concerned about the price of the rules and codexes, and the quality of the rules.

I have several editions of rules and codexes as I have been playing since late 2004. If I want to replace them and move on to 6th edition, I can get the softback rulebook fairly cheaply, but the codexes are more than twice the cost they used to be, and are larger and heavier to carry around. I also expect that 7th edition will invalidate the current books to some degree in one or two years. Although I got the 6th edition softback, I haven't bought any codexes, even my top armies -- Tau and Tyranids -- because they are so expensive.

What I want to see is a good softback range of codexes to match the rules only rulebook from the starter set. I don't need the fluff and painting guides. They just add useless bulk and price.

GW went a little bit in that direction with the small hardback rulebook. Unfortunately they upped the price to match the old fullsize hardback, but I would stomach it if they did similar codexes at say £20 each, that were nicely done, the same size as the rulebook and with ribbons, etc. So I would compromise on a set of books in hardback at a price point in between the old large format softback stuff and the new hardbacks.

The other thing is rules quality. 40K was never that tight or good a game. Some of the new ideas like Allies plainly don't work, and I don't think the size of the game really accommodates all the stuff like flyers, fortresses and so on. I would like a good, tight ruleset containing about the same content as 4th edition (Killteam for skirmishes, the standard game without superheavies, formations, etc, and a campaign system.) The add-on rules should be published as add-on books like Cities of Death, Apocalypse and so on, and not made part of the core system.

On top of that I would like the rules just to be better written -- clearer and tighter. I'm not that concerned about changing things like UGOIGO. If I want to play a sophisticated tactical wargame there are plenty out there.

Lastly, better balance between codexes.

I haven't gotten anything directly from GW in 4+ years due to outrageous in store prices. However with that in mind I still play six armies currently the smallest of which is 1k points wise, and four of them are horde armies. The majority of those models I obtained though trade forums, buying them at 40% or higher off traditional prices, it may have taken sometime but I saved a lot of money in the process. Anyway a price cut would be nice but I have no beef with WHFB rules and I tire greatly with those who incessantly criticize GW rules/balance as a whole because really its 40k that is really desiring of that level of criticize.

riburn3 wrote:
Fair pricing across markets and currencies would go a long way in my book.

Our cousins in Australia, NZ, and Canada are paying far more for a product despite their currencies being on par with the dollar. Even when you factor in shipping, it still doesn't explain why some items are 50% more expensive.

Same in Europe. Models cost about 9% more on the mainland than in the UK, despite being sold on the same continent and under the same Union. When Maelstrom Games still existed, they were giving up to 30% discounts on orders, and considering that was from the UK price when the currency exchanges were favorable the discount was about 50% total of what I would've paid when buying from a local GW store. I bought two entire 2000 point 'one click' armies with those prices.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


The other thing is rules quality. 40K was never that tight or good a game. Some of the new ideas like Allies plainly don't work, and I don't think the size of the game really accommodates all the stuff like flyers, fortresses and so on. I would like a good, tight ruleset containing about the same content as 4th edition (Killteam for skirmishes, the standard game without superheavies, formations, etc, and a campaign system.) The add-on rules should be published as add-on books like Cities of Death, Apocalypse and so on, and not made part of the core system.

I think this is also pretty subjective. Rules like allies and add ons work perfectly fine outside of the most hyper-competitive scenes, and I would imagine the vast majority of us don't roll in those circles. What ruins it is when several players find a broken combo and they plaster it all across the internet. The last serious business tournament I played in last year was a copy and paste of army lists from internet forums. When GW was still running the Grand Tournament system, you wouldn't see an identical list out there. I think the internet has been great for promoting the hobby, but it also has created a darker demon where one persons army list is wrong, and they need to put this, that, and the other in their list, causing lots of players to feel that many of their units are useless, even if they never ever plan to play in a tournament. Now when I play in tournaments in my city (which are very casual), I go out of my way to make far feteched lists with supposedly weak units because it's that much more rewarding to win with something the internet has deemed to be non competitive.

Nothing?

After years of pause from GW I recently got back into completing my armies.

Prices is common denominator but since I have no rush I can spend as little as 30ish per month and still have fun with some gw minis. I mean look at arachnarok that thing is going to take ages to complete…. If you spend 100ish per month then you will have more than enough to keep you very busy and depending on armies you can finish one in 6 - 8 months.

riburn3 wrote:

 Alkasyn wrote:
I could stomach the prices if the game was fun to play. It isn't.

Fair enough, but that's incredibly subjective. Some people define fun in the hobby as modeling and painting. Some define it as spending a casual afternoon with friends playing the game in a relaxed setting, and some define it as steamrolling everyone with the most cheesed out list possible. I look at a lot of the Tyranid whining on the message boards here and elsewhere and see people upset that they can't make a cheesed out list to counter other cheesed out lists. At the casual level where most of the player base exists, these are hardly issues.

Piffle.

Whether somebody buys and plays a game is inherently subjective. Period. End stop. The only objective reason not to buy and play a game is if it is unavailable.

I do not have fun = I do not buy the game. Why would I? - I play games for fun, and the current editions are not games that I think are fun.

I think a game is badly balanced and tested = I do not play the game. If I think that a game is badly balanced/Badly playtested then I am less interested - I want my skill at tactics be the determining factor, not that I was smart enough to pick the uber army of the current edition.

I do not like the miniatures = I do not buy the miniatures. I buy miniatures because I think painting miniature is fun and the painted miniatures look good. If the miniature isn't fun to paint, and looks like crap then I won't buy it. I could (and have) gone on for hours about how I hate many (but by no means all) of the current GW miniatures.

I think that everything is over priced = I do not buy anything. GW has been in this position for three years - the last time I bought anything by GW was terrain at 50% off when a store went under because of a messy divorce. Last year I bought nothing by GW - but my game spending was higher than it has ever been. (Damn you Kickstarter! Damn you!)

If I am going to buy from GW then I need to enjoy the rules, I need to like the models, and they need to be worth the money. At this point GW is three strikes and out.

All the things that I liked about GW are things of the past - I liked the archive models: Gone. I liked the poseable plastic models: Gone. I liked the Specialist Games: Gone.

They would pretty much need to start over from zero.

And, since then, I have gone to other, and in my opinion, better games.

Is that subjective?

Damn skippy it is!

So, honestly? I do not think it at all likely that GW will ever get me back.

The Auld Grump.

@NAVARRO
And that's all well and good for some people but the rest of us wonder why we should spend $100 when the same amount of equal quality models would only cost $45 from one of GWs competitors.

They'd have to make a game that looked fun or interesting to play, and start making models that I actually wanted to own (there are probably a few, I don't really follow their releases, but there isn't a single army they make that I'd buy on 'army aesthetics' alone).

Quite simply GW have to become as customer focused as their competition.Or they will continue to loose sales volumes.

Rule sets are supposed to be instructions to play a game.So professional proof reading and editing go a long way to improve the perceived quality .

Releasing JUST rules and army lists (fluff free,) as free down loads allows easy up dates , (every 6 months or so.)And open up the forums again to allow two way communication between GW staff and customers.

As many have said get price equity across all areas of the world.And adjust prices and/ or game size to drop entry costs to a comparative level.

(Just to point out the total cost of manufacturing GW product is only 24% of retail price.What bumps the price up is the B&M retail chain which eats up over 60% of GWs gross profit!So a re structured retail focus would allow significant price cuts.)

I haven't abandoned gw, but I have diversified. I now play dust tactics, warmachine and infinity, with a copy of x-wing on the horizon. I can't undiversify, and that means gw get maybe 20% of my hobby spend, whereas before, they got 100%

Price cuts really depends on the models.

For example, the Cadian models aren't really that great, and the Catachan infantry box is hideous. I'd barely pay WGF costs for them.

But their Nobs box, or their lootas? Or even their regular boyz box? All are great kits that show what GW is capable of when it gets its gak together. Even a minor price decrease of 10-20% would make me a lot more likely to buy them. The only reason I'm not buying them to be honest is because I told myself I wouldn't buy anything from GW until they started going in a direction I like (so never basically) my one weakpoint being their washes, as those things are awesome.

The problem isn't so much that GW has high prices so much as it charges a premium on every model, whether it's premium quality or not. For example, I'll pay Victoria Lamb or Kromlech's prices with no hesitation. I know that while I'm paying a premium, I'm going to get some of those coolest looking models out there. With GW, I just don't have that same confidence.

Also the costs for rules is getting insane. Yeah, I paid $50 for Grey wolf for flames of war, but it's a hardback book with over 300 pages, really nice quality, and has probably over 50 "army lists" from 3 different nations. It even comes with history, basic painting guides, and explanations of uniforms used and unit markings.

For that same cost, in 40k I would get a 50 page book with 2 pages of rules, mostly rehashed fluff I could buy from a previous codex 6 years ago, and (last I checked) no painting guides whatsoever. The Flames of war book also appears to have far more playtesting done and internal balance, since I can use almost any unit I wish out of the book and know that it will at least be useful for something. I wish I could say the same for my IG and Ork codexes.

TL;DR I wouldn't mind GW's "premium pricing" strategy if they actually released things that felt like premium products. I buy GW's washes all the time because I really like them and feel they're worth the money. Anything else they make at best feels like a decent product that I'm over charged for, and at worst, a really crappy product that you're getting taken on.

At this point, it would have to be a total overhaul of the rules - as in redoing them completely and making something new and interesting.

TheAuldGrump,

It is subjective, but you provided clear and concise reasons as to why you personally don't want to play and why GW won't win you back as a customer. The previous poster only said it's not fun with no explanation as to what he defines as fun, and I guess I should have asked him to speak to why he doesn't believe the game is fun anymore instead of saying something is subjective.

As to being "worth the money", how would you define that? I've found it to be worth the money compared to other hobbies like video games, magic, or even other similar modeling games strictly from a cost and recovery standpoint. A new Xbox One plus a few games in the US is $700+ dollars. I can get a good 40k army for that much, and spend 100's of hours of time modeling it, painting it, and playing it. If I take that Xbox back to Gamestop to sell it back, I'll be lucky to get half my money back, and in a few years, I'll be lucky to get a quarter of it back.

In terms of recovery, no other hobby lets you get out and recover a good chunk of your initial investment so easily. In many cases if you've been sitting on an army for a few years, the value of your models has gone up significantly. If it's well painted, its common to receive full retail or more. Example, in 1999 I bought a huge Sisters of Battle army for $250 through GW. Last year I sold it on eBay completely painted for $790. Even if you just want to get rid of a unit that's opened and sitting on sprues, it's not uncommon to still receieve 70% of retail value. And as time goes on, the price of your models appreciate since the price of the models go up through the source.