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Also, when someone nerfs Zergling rush by doubling the cost, no one realy complains about having painted over 50 Zerglings which have suddenly become less effective. So big changes can occur. Units can be removed totally between different versions of the game etc. Less of a gamer investment.

OK so new theory because Blizzard can balance Star Craft GW cannot balance 40K?!?!?

OgreChubbs wrote:
Starcraft has no lore to follow so it is easy to have some balance. But if I remember correctly from my warcraft tft days they where on patch 100+ so not that well balanced if they still didn't get it right after 99 trys.

As the meta changes, balance needs adjustment. That's perfectly normal.

Either way, WC3 / TFT was probably much less balance than SC, and balance is unrelated to lore imo.
Races are very specific and balance is asymmetric in SC2, so there is no valid reason for lore to make it any more difficult.
WC3 and SC have approximately the same amount of lore too.

The big difference is that those games have had a thousand times more players than WH40K / WHFB.

I'm waiting for someone a program to run the beginning of a Starcraft game for them.

A game that is so balanced basically has a select few possible starting builds, so for the first ~5 mins you could just have a program control all your units while you stare at the computer and supervise.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm waiting for someone a program to run the beginning of a Starcraft game for them.

A game that is so balanced basically has a select few possible starting builds, so for the first ~5 mins you could just have a program control all your units while you stare at the computer and supervise.

Not only are there things happening in the first 5 minutes, it's also a very good time to warm up your fingers...

I agree it seems dull, and clearly the APM is not there, but it's a critical time for scouting / proxying.


Back on topic: there would be less fluff vs WAAC if WH40K implemented a regular balance update.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm waiting for someone a program to run the beginning of a Starcraft game for them.

A game that is so balanced basically has a select few possible starting builds, so for the first ~5 mins you could just have a program control all your units while you stare at the computer and supervise.

SC2 games are often decided by good scouting/harassing moves in the first few minutes of the game, have a program automate that for you and you'd never win a game against a serious opponent.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Throt wrote:
IMO we need to move pat the idea of 'punished' because every army has the same restrictions.

Except that's not true at all. Armies with good troops don't see it as a restriction at all because they'll gladly spend more than 25% of their army on troops. Armies with weaker troops are punished severely because they have to fill a larger troops quota before they can take the things they want. And no matter how you look at it imposing limits like that will be seen as punishment because they're not part of the standard rules. If my army is banned under your rules and wasn't blatantly overpowered then I'm not going to have any interest in those rules. And when you impose blanket restrictions across all armies it is inevitable that people with legal armies under the normal rules will be punished under yours.

Punishment is when something is done purposefully because of something else. IF GW removed wave serpents from the book and said they were too powerful, that is punishment. Think of it as lowering a speed limit in an area. The attempt is to put more control over the area without closing the road. Lowering a speed limit isn't going to solve everything just add some constraint.
Again, it's not going to be the absolute fix.
IMO many people take this hobby waay too seriously as they are so slighted. If it was basketball they would scream no fair because the other team just got a 7ft 5in player.

It also places a maximum on specialty units. Forcing a more balanced army list.

Also not true. It doesn't help balance at all if the overpowered units are troops. For example, Wave Serpents and Necron flyers are troops and could still be spammed. So not only would those lists not suffer any loss in power they'd actually gain in power relative to other lists because those other lists have had relevant options restricted.

 Throt wrote:
To a point you are correct. And if chaos can spam helldrakes, and that guy can buy the op forge world stuff, and this guy necron fliers, screamers, and on and on. The players are more to blame than the game. It really plays just fine as is.

Lol, seriously? "The game is just fine as long as you just avoid all of the many balance issues and never attempt to win". If there are game-breaking options available then the game deserves every bit of blame that it gets.

All the 'broken' rules have allowed people to take all their toys which shows that the issue becomes the player more than the game.

And, again, no. If the rules allow X then you can't whine and cry when someone does X. The problem here is GW's incompetent and/or lazy "game designers", not the players who bring lists that you don't approve of.

If points were regulated, you would not see a land raider in a 500 point game.

So the game is fine, as long as you play it at low point levels and impose a bunch of restrictions that aren't found in the actual game?

And why do they hate dual FOC...most of them hate it because their spammed army can now be more easily countered because it has opened the spam for the other armies that are usually walk overs.

Sigh, no. People hate dual FOC because it enables obnoxious spam armies. Even people who play armies that would win more frequently if they got access to multiple FOCs tend to dislike the idea.

If someone is taking flyer spam at 1000 points that's the player, not the game.

No, it's absolutely the game. If flyerspam lists break the game at 1000 points then the game should contain restrictions on how many flyers you can bring in a 1000 point game. Only an incompetent idiot like GW's rule authors would publish an unrestricted game like 40k and think it's a great idea.

People hide behind the loopholes blaming the company for the decisions that they choose to make.

You know why? Because GW deserves the blame. Good games made by competent game designers don't have these problems. The only reason we're having a discussion about what lists are "ok" to play is because GW's rule authors are shamefully incompetent and didn't bother to make a better game.

And no, most overpowered list aren't the result of "loopholes". Bringing three Riptides in a 1000 point game isn't the result of finding some complex interaction between obscure rules and arguing that the gray area should favor the Riptide player, it's just taking advantage of a straightforward option that wasn't balanced properly.

In all fairness, I would like to point out that paper rules and the long delay between editions have traditionally prevented GW from creating balance.

Balance is created in reaction to players, the more players you have, the faster you discover the problems, the faster you can fix them.

There is almost nobody on this planet playing 40K in comparison with SC2, so it makes sense that balance would progress much slower here.

However, the only critical factor here is that rules are still paying, and paper.

Because they are paying, people whine when a new edition lands every 2/3 years.

Because they are paper, it's practically impossible to make a quarterly release.

Until those two limitations are removed, there can be no balance, because players, even the slowest ones, move infinitely faster than the ruleset.

Having house rules lets people try and compensate for the lack of a quarterly update, and that's a good thing, as long as it's treated as such and not as a divide between good and evil.

I'd like it if people would stop hammering GW like that and realize for a second that unlike almost every corporation we deal with, they do not make 80% profit, they do not have the margin required to offer good deals to most of their resellers, and they are investing in this business instead of selling it and making financial placements, for purely personal reasons.

Sure, their balance could be improved, but you have to admit it's been improving seriously and the number of "broken" things is rather limited (undercosted Riptide, BaronFarseer -stars, the rest is mostly whine from people who don't want to adapt to the new rules and army lists afaik).

Actually the broken things are very common. It's just that you have to look on both sides. Look for broken good, broken bad, and so on and you'll find many things.

And in the digital age some changes really could have been used. Heldrake too good? Why wait when you can just change the hull mount to 180 rather than 360?

morgoth wrote:
In all fairness, I would like to point out that paper rules and the long delay between editions have traditionally prevented GW from creating balance.

This argument went out the window with the widespread availability of the internet 15 years ago, certainly 10 years ago. "Patching" a tabletop game is as easy as making a FAQ with a list of changes. Changes can be simple hacks between editions as a stop-gap measure that improves balance in an easy way, such as a points adjustment, while more complex but better changes are applied next edition - of which there have been seven now.

 StarTrotter wrote:
And in the digital age some changes really could have been used. Heldrake too good? Why wait when you can just change the hull mount to 180 rather than 360?

This is especially amusing because the only reason the Helldrake got a 360* turret in the first place was an online FAQ/errata. By the book it was just a hull-mounted weapon with a 45* arc.

 Peregrine wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
And in the digital age some changes really could have been used. Heldrake too good? Why wait when you can just change the hull mount to 180 rather than 360?

This is especially amusing because the only reason the Helldrake got a 360* turret in the first place was an online FAQ/errata. By the book it was just a hull-mounted weapon with a 45* arc.

Which is exactly my point! They FAQd it to make it broken. Before then, the baledrake was deadly but not broken whilst the autodrake wasn't really all that hot. Once that hit though, bam they went deadly. All it would take to fix was some minor addition of rules. Would the game still be a broken mess? Yes but everybody needs to drag along the FAQ anyways so why complain about that if you work to improve things. Waveserpent too good? Reduce the range. 2++ rerollables a thing? 2++/4++or5++. Bam! There we go guys we are fixing the game. If they did that, I'd at least give them some respect. Show that somebody in there cares.

 Yonan wrote:

morgoth wrote:
In all fairness, I would like to point out that paper rules and the long delay between editions have traditionally prevented GW from creating balance.

This argument went out the window with the widespread availability of the internet 15 years ago, certainly 10 years ago. "Patching" a tabletop game is as easy as making a FAQ with a list of changes. Changes can be simple hacks between editions as a stop-gap measure that improves balance in an easy way, such as a points adjustment, while more complex but better changes are applied next edition - of which there have been [i]seven[/] now.

The Internet wasn't really that widespread 15 years ago, but the question you have to ask is not if it was possible, but rather if it was sensible.

There are a lot of very backwards people who still buy stuff in brick and mortar shops when the same stuff is available from their couch, delivered to their home, for less and with better service.

In other words, a non-paper edition of the rules would have been a huge problem rather than a solution, certainly around 4th/5th, and it may become practical for 8th.

They can't really avoid paper either, the only thing they can do is create a minimal rulebook, and have printout of this quarter's version available for cheap in your FLG/GW stores, because some people will still need that paper.

They could even have FAQs available in their own stores, given out for free - no internet required. A couple pages would have cost them nothing, and the improved balance and perception of good customer service would have vastly outweighed the minuscule cost of doing so.

The two biggest complaints people have against GW and 40K are price and poor balance. It would have been *very* sensible to do something like this.

morgoth wrote:
Balance is created in reaction to players, the more players you have, the faster you discover the problems, the faster you can fix them.

Yes, number of players is a factor, but the much bigger factor is playtesting. A good playtesting process lets you avoid the worst balance issues and focus your "patching" on fine-tuning minor things to make the perfect game. GW, on the other hand, believes that playtesting consists of maybe playing a few games for fun on your lunch break and then publishing the rules. And so 40k books are published with blatant balance issues and unclear rules that should never have survived from the original rough draft.

I'd like it if people would stop hammering GW like that and realize for a second that unlike almost every corporation we deal with, they do not make 80% profit, they do not have the margin required to offer good deals to most of their resellers, and they are investing in this business instead of selling it and making financial placements, for purely personal reasons.

I disagree with all of this.

The only reason GW doesn't make 80% profit is their own failures, especially in their retail stores. Sale price compared to production price is pretty good, they just waste tons of money on an inefficient business model and end up with underwhelming profits.

GW has plenty of margin to offer resellers, and does. Stores can make a profit selling GW items at 10-20% off. The issue is that GW is greedy and wants to drive all business to their own stores and website, even when third-party stores are important to their continued success. And so we get lots of direct-only items for no reason at all beyond GW's desire to sell at full price through their own website.

GW is not investing anything into their business. They're cutting costs everywhere and sacrificing quality and long-term growth in favor of making the next financial report show a better profit. I suspect the only reason why GW hasn't sold the business is that nobody is willing to pay GW's current share price for a business with such a questionable future.

Sure, their balance could be improved, but you have to admit it's been improving seriously and the number of "broken" things is rather limited (undercosted Riptide, BaronFarseer -stars, the rest is mostly whine from people who don't want to adapt to the new rules and army lists afaik).

This is completely wrong. The "short" list of balance issues is only short because it only contains the most obvious ones that are so game-breakingly unbalanced that even the biggest GW fanboy has to admit that there's a problem. And when things are that badly unbalanced there's not much point in worrying about fine-tuning the rest of the rules. But once you look past the obvious problems you'll quickly discover that the rest of the game isn't balanced very well either, it's just doesn't get as much attention when the focus is on other stuff.

Then you have armies such as the Wraithknights that crumble to certain armies but other armies will shed tears as they have almost nothing that can properly fight them. Or Scions that have almost no options. Or, better yet, whenever a... Legion of the Damned (almost said Lost and the Damned ) army was in 6th (not sure with 7th), if you tried to play them by themselves without a rule change would instantly lose. Made funnier by one special rule in the codex that was to be used in just one mission fixing that problem.

 Peregrine wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Balance is created in reaction to players, the more players you have, the faster you discover the problems, the faster you can fix them.

Yes, number of players is a factor, but the much bigger factor is playtesting. A good playtesting process lets you avoid the worst balance issues and focus your "patching" on fine-tuning minor things to make the perfect game. GW, on the other hand, believes that playtesting consists of maybe playing a few games for fun on your lunch break and then publishing the rules. And so 40k books are published with blatant balance issues and unclear rules that should never have survived from the original rough draft.

Honestly, I think you do not realize.
Back in open beta SC2, there were still things as broken as the most broken things in 40K today, and that was after months of playtesting and then a closed beta, with people far more knowledgeable about RTS than there even exist about wargames (numbers and competition make it so).

Believe me, I've been in the top 1% in several RTS games and I can tell you balance is no easy thing, it's much harder with a game that lasts 2+ hours on average.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

The only reason GW doesn't make 80% profit is their own failures, especially in their retail stores. Sale price compared to production price is pretty good, they just waste tons of money on an inefficient business model and end up with underwhelming profits.

The reason GW does not make 80% profit is that there is almost noone playing this game. That's it. No mass market, no economics of scale, no mass-produced chinese crap that you can simply rebrand / factory tweak and sell as Stanley, Philips or Apple.

Can we stop references to video games? If Blizzard re-configures a unit, you change your build order strategy.

If Games Workshop re-configures a unit, you could be out $50 and hours worth of work.

morgoth wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Balance is created in reaction to players, the more players you have, the faster you discover the problems, the faster you can fix them.

Yes, number of players is a factor, but the much bigger factor is playtesting. A good playtesting process lets you avoid the worst balance issues and focus your "patching" on fine-tuning minor things to make the perfect game. GW, on the other hand, believes that playtesting consists of maybe playing a few games for fun on your lunch break and then publishing the rules. And so 40k books are published with blatant balance issues and unclear rules that should never have survived from the original rough draft.

Honestly, I think you do not realize.
Back in open beta SC2, there were still things as broken as the most broken things in 40K today, and that was after months of playtesting and then a closed beta, with people far more knowledgeable about RTS than there even exist about wargames (numbers and competition make it so).

Believe me, I've been in the top 1% in several RTS games and I can tell you balance is no easy thing, it's much harder with a game that lasts 2+ hours on average.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

The only reason GW doesn't make 80% profit is their own failures, especially in their retail stores. Sale price compared to production price is pretty good, they just waste tons of money on an inefficient business model and end up with underwhelming profits.

The reason GW does not make 80% profit is that there is almost noone playing this game. That's it. No mass market, no economics of scale, no mass-produced chinese crap that you can simply rebrand / factory tweak and sell as Stanley, Philips or Apple.

But how do things like the waveserpent slip through? Even worse, What of the heldrake? The thing went from okay to godly and they never tried to fix it at all? They actually made it worse with a faq. As per 80%, to be fair it doesn't help that they are very anti-consumer, slash and burn oriented and focused on the now with zero advertisements and clunky hobby shops. The best advertisement they have going is their games and there's only so far that can go (especially as the ones on ipad aren't quite as "hardcore")

 StarTrotter wrote:

But how do things like the waveserpent slip through? Even worse, What of the heldrake? The thing went from okay to godly and they never tried to fix it at all? They actually made it worse with a faq. As per 80%, to be fair it doesn't help that they are very anti-consumer, slash and burn oriented and focused on the now with zero advertisements and clunky hobby shops. The best advertisement they have going is their games and there's only so far that can go (especially as the ones on ipad aren't quite as "hardcore")

Simple, the Wave Serpent is not overpowered, you're just playing against it with the same army you use to beat anything else and being disappointed that it's not the correct tool.
Surprise, a scredriver isn't that great with nails.
Like a Wave Serpent isn't that great with taking down Land Raiders or Monoliths.

The Heldrake 360° was a pretty dumb mistake considering it's one of the weaknesses of all flyers, but it makes sense when you think about the very small amount of resources they probably have handling the FAQ - that would at least explain why they are so infrequent and incomplete.
The undercosting was a mistake as well, but hard to detect until it sees mass competitive play.

morgoth wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:

But how do things like the waveserpent slip through? Even worse, What of the heldrake? The thing went from okay to godly and they never tried to fix it at all? They actually made it worse with a faq. As per 80%, to be fair it doesn't help that they are very anti-consumer, slash and burn oriented and focused on the now with zero advertisements and clunky hobby shops. The best advertisement they have going is their games and there's only so far that can go (especially as the ones on ipad aren't quite as "hardcore")

Simple, the Wave Serpent is not overpowered, you're just playing against it with the same army you use to beat anything else and being disappointed that it's not the correct tool.
Surprise, a scredriver isn't that great with nails.
Like a Wave Serpent isn't that great with taking down Land Raiders or Monoliths.

The Heldrake 360° was a pretty dumb mistake considering it's one of the weaknesses of all flyers, but it makes sense when you think about the very small amount of resources they probably have handling the FAQ - that would at least explain why they are so infrequent and incomplete.
The undercosting was a mistake as well, but hard to detect until it sees mass competitive play.

Tip it was broken. You just are understating it's power dramatically. It was a transport that was tanky and fired tons of shots and was super mobile. High strength shots? Unreliable as they were minimal in number. Tons of shots? It was tanky and had good toughness (had jink in 6th which made it godly). It's only drawback was that you couldn't take it without troops in them. They were a very blatant unit that was too good. Not the worst ever nor the most broken combo but most glaring for sure.

Still, that shows the lack of care as well. No corrections, they made something worse and never fixed it back up until 2 years pass by and they decide to just change the rules. And perhaps that is the most frustrating part. They don't really tweak things, they largely just change things for the sake of change. (Sometimes I entertain the thought that some Tzeentchian daemon leads the company )

 StarTrotter wrote:
As per 80%, to be fair it doesn't help that they are very anti-consumer, slash and burn oriented and focused on the now with zero advertisements and clunky hobby shops. The best advertisement they have going is their games and there's only so far that can go (especially as the ones on ipad aren't quite as "hardcore")

That's the thing, when you're not having huge margins, you can either focus on your product (here the game) or focus on advertising, imo GW is doing the right thing by focusing on their product, which is a long term approach.
Where they are fething up in my opinion is their approach of sales channels, where any shop outside of UK has a horrible time, and any shop can't even sell the whole range.
It's a huge mistake on their part to try and use their own sales platform as anything other than a safety net for players who live too far from a shop.
You should be able to order ForgeWorld or any "GW-remote-only" item from your local store, and it should be a better deal without the shipping costs.

Either way, that's long term talk and it still will never bring them close to 80%, they can only ever reach that kind of profitability with a much larger market (hint: a very complex board game that lasts 4 hours, requires flash removal, assembly, painting and such has a rather small target market).

morgoth wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
As per 80%, to be fair it doesn't help that they are very anti-consumer, slash and burn oriented and focused on the now with zero advertisements and clunky hobby shops. The best advertisement they have going is their games and there's only so far that can go (especially as the ones on ipad aren't quite as "hardcore")

That's the thing, when you're not having huge margins, you can either focus on your product (here the game) or focus on advertising, imo GW is doing the right thing by focusing on their product, which is a long term approach.
Where they are fething up in my opinion is their approach of sales channels, where any shop outside of UK has a horrible time, and any shop can't even sell the whole range.
It's a huge mistake on their part to try and use their own sales platform as anything other than a safety net for players who live too far from a shop.
You should be able to order ForgeWorld or any "GW-remote-only" item from your local store, and it should be a better deal without the shipping costs.

Either way, that's long term talk and it still will never bring them close to 80%, they can only ever reach that kind of profitability with a much larger market (hint: a very complex board game that lasts 4 hours, requires flash removal, assembly, painting and such has a rather small target market).

How do they focus on their product? They don't playtest, they do things to upset their current base, continue to mark up prices, price gouge, go for cheap shots and largely ignore their fanbase with little care as well as attempting to cripple hobby shops taht aren't them that sell their goods. Then they have price upturns to no end that make you pay through the nose in places like Australia. One needs to advertise but if your established fanbase is upset, well sales are going to drop and they aren't going to start pointing to that hobby are they? I will agree with you on the Sales platform. The question becomes, why are their models so pricey compared to other wargames? Why does this supplement with only 2 pages of rules cost the same as a codex? Why is the rulebook so costly? If it was at least balanced largely, I could set it aside. If they tried working on it, I could care. If they had some bloody PR, I could care. But they don't Instead, for every one good thing they do, they mess up in two other ways dramatically.

morgoth wrote:
In all fairness, I would like to point out that paper rules and the long delay between editions have traditionally prevented GW from creating balance.

GW has chosen to limit themselves to paper rules, paper rules aren't preventing GW from making non-paper rules.

morgoth wrote:
I'd like it if people would stop hammering GW like that and realize for a second that unlike almost every corporation we deal with, they do not make 80% profit, they do not have the margin required to offer good deals to most of their resellers, and they are investing in this business instead of selling it and making financial placements, for purely personal reasons.

No company ever makes 80% profit without being a criminal enterprise because of overhead. Good companies might be able to make up to 30% profit for a service industry where there are no material costs, but not with manufacturing which requires a significant amount of overhead.

I don't think that GW provides as much as they should for their retail cost, and their overpriced rulebooks are the worst cost to value ratio for the customer.

 StarTrotter wrote:

How do they focus on their product? They don't playtest, they do things to upset their current base, continue to mark up prices, price gouge, go for cheap shots and largely ignore their fanbase with little care as well as attempting to cripple hobby shops taht aren't them that sell their goods. Then they have price upturns to no end that make you pay through the nose in places like Australia. One needs to advertise but if your established fanbase is upset, well sales are going to drop and they aren't going to start pointing to that hobby are they? I will agree with you on the Sales platform. The question becomes, why are their models so pricey compared to other wargames? Why does this supplement with only 2 pages of rules cost the same as a codex? Why is the rulebook so costly? If it was at least balanced largely, I could set it aside. If they tried working on it, I could care. If they had some bloody PR, I could care. But they don't Instead, for every one good thing they do, they mess up in two other ways dramatically.

1. The Australian problem is not their fault, it's a currency conversion and inventory issue.
2. Because other wargames surf on GW's popularity
3. Because it's just as hard to get two pages to your local store as a full book ?
4. Because getting a book produced in so many languages for so few sales is really expensive ?
5. Don't underestimate how hard it is to balance a game, there are only a few select games that have been clearly better balanced than 40K.

I don't think they're doing awesome, but you can't compare new companies with zero investment to a company that owns shops and is basically the backbone for every fantasy and futurist wargame out there.
People come from GW games to other games far more than the other way around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 snooggums wrote:

morgoth wrote:
In all fairness, I would like to point out that paper rules and the long delay between editions have traditionally prevented GW from creating balance.

GW has chosen to limit themselves to paper rules, paper rules aren't preventing GW from making non-paper rules.

morgoth wrote:
I'd like it if people would stop hammering GW like that and realize for a second that unlike almost every corporation we deal with, they do not make 80% profit, they do not have the margin required to offer good deals to most of their resellers, and they are investing in this business instead of selling it and making financial placements, for purely personal reasons.

No company ever makes 80% profit without being a criminal enterprise because of overhead. Good companies might be able to make up to 30% profit for a service industry where there are no material costs, but not with manufacturing which requires a significant amount of overhead.

I don't think that GW provides as much as they should for their retail cost, and their overpriced rulebooks are the worst cost to value ratio for the customer.

1. Actually yes, because they can't have players playing with different rules.
2. I don't think you know the real production costs of an iPhone or a Stanley screwdriver or a Philips led bulb. I have researched materials and production costs as well as purchased some of the components at an already very inflated unit price for less than those companies declare the same component's costs. You could say that using a non-western company to channel the majority of the profits is a criminal enterprise but it's not. You are allowed to own a dubai company buying stuff from China and immediately selling it to a EU company at 5 times the price without any physical exchange, and thus declare minimal profit in the western world. It's easy, anyone with a bit of money has access to that option and it's not a criminal act.

1. The Australian problem is not their fault, it's a currency conversion and inventory issue.

Actually not quite. There's several reasons, one, companies simply up the price because they can. I can't remember who, but Microsoft or Apple got in trouble for pricing ridiculously. As per other factors, several other wargames cost less over there and it doesn't excuse some of the almost double price increases over there right next to other units that only cost 3 dollars more.

Because it's just as hard to get two pages to your local store as a full book ?

Not really. It could be more, they just needed more rules. And if that were so, why were the old supplements years ago cheaper than the rulebooks?

morgoth wrote:
1. The Australian problem is not their fault, it's a currency conversion and inventory issue.

It's a GW issue. It happened back when the currency conversion was $AU1 to $US0.6. Now it's close to $US1 to $AU1 but the prices have not changed. The result is GW making an extra 30-40% margin. Well, the result is hugely declining sales in Australia, but the intended goal is extra margin. As Trotter said, there is parity in pricing for every other tabletop wargame.

morgoth wrote:
1. The Australian problem is not their fault, it's a currency conversion and inventory issue.

As an Australian I am calling bs here. Yes, it is GW's fault. Many companies do charge more here, but that doesn't somehow mean we can let GW take a pass on it. They cite historical exchange rates and higher minimum wages as the reason, which are again bs. If it is cheaper to buy products from the US and pay the shipping to get them here there is NO justification for this.

morgoth wrote:
2. Because other wargames surf on GW's popularity

Do explain to me how a 1128/1 scale game about victorian era stampunk massed naval warfare is somehow riding the popularity of a 28mm company scale sifi game, or even how a 28mm true scale sifi skimish game that uses D20s is riding the popularity of 40k. Hell explain how any games other than Mantic ones (which to be fair are made by the same people that made the GW games) are riding on GWs popularity? If fact I'd argue they are doing the opposite, they are going from strength to strength right now by taking advantage of people's current disillusionment with GW.

morgoth wrote:
4. Because getting a book produced in so many languages for so few sales is really expensive ?

Recently GW have been pulling back to English only for anything but absolutely essential products.

morgoth wrote:
5. Don't underestimate how hard it is to balance a game, there are only a few select games that have been clearly better balanced than 40K.

No. No that is not true at all. I can't think of any game on the market at the moment as poorly balanced as 40k. Please give an example of something that is considered that unbalanced by a majority opinion.

1. For those who still don't get it.
Aussie store buys 5000AUD of stuff from GW, worth 2500 pounds. AUD hikes like crazy, meaning that 5000AUD is now worth 5000 pounds. GW can either say slash the prices in half, give 2500 AUD back to the Aussies, which is the price they paid for the merchandise, or keep the price and let the situation work itself out. There was no easy way out once Aussie stores had purchased GW stuff at the old AUD/pound exchange rate.

2. Many of the other games get attention from GW gamers, who exist mostly because of GW advertising and stores. Once you're in the hobby you may turn to other games, but GW clearly is one of the biggest gates. People leaving GW for those games is also surfing on GW's popularity.

4. Rightly so, what's the point of translating a black library book if you're only going to sell 500 copies, and you need 5000 to even pay for the translation ?

5. Command and Conquer Zero Hour. It's broken, and it's had 4 patches. Worse, people have been map hacking for years.