Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Game Friday. From two close friends in the studio, the rules team writes rules, then plays them in a Friday. So, nope. Try again, maybe not listening to every rumour that confirms your viewpoint next time. Really question these things...

Uhh... this verifies the rumour. That if there's testing, it's not on the clock, but on their own time with a small circle of volunteers.

We have taken away the shovel yet he continues to dig...

Sigh. Yay for reading comprehension failure! Where did I say it was after work? Anywhere? No, that was just an assumption made....and a bad one.

It is on the clock. As in, that IS Friday. All of it.

You have taken nothing away, as you have absolutely no clue.

To those saying I was saying you should trust me. In that very sentence I was saying to question it, from places you trust. Not trusting me - I trust myself, Im not saying you should. And yes, you DO have a chance to talk to the designers - games days, open days, etc. Its just not as easy as a forum, or facebook etc. Could they do better? Of course. I have not stated the opposite, I am not making that claim. However those of you on the anti-GW at all costs side tend to not be able to see anything but black and white on this topic, when as ever it is somewhere in the middle. Gain clarity on where they are - not the singlesided view, but a balanced one - and then you can have meaningful debate, as you have a known starting point.

What I AM saying is that constantly repeating the headline grabbing rumours is a fairly terrible way to argue a point - again, question sources. If you want to know about the design process, actually make an effort to find out for yourself. Constant reliance on, and repetition of, only the most headline grabbing rumours that coincide with your impression of the company, is a poor way to convince anyone. It just becomes an exercise, like this thread, in back slapping, in calling others stupid, and other inanities that bring little value to a discussion.

To repeat - I am not, in anyway, saying GW is perfect at anything they do. In fact, they are bad at a fair few things - coherent communication being one, and their approach to rules development being in-house only. However its not ALL bad either - speak to the designers. HEAR their enthusiasm for the setting, the concept, and try to understand how they want the game to operate.

It doesnt have to fit your requirements, it just has to fit enough peoples requirements.

Okay so they take all of a Friday to "playtest". Assuming they work 8 hours (do you work 8 hours a day in the UK?) that's what, two games of 40k? I don't believe for a minute that they actually playtest by setting up specific conditions to test e.g. what if X unit with ability A is within 12" of Y unit with ability B. If anything they playtest by actually having a game and probably using whatever new unit is coming out, which doesn't show you a lot.

I'm going to go ahead and echo Azrael and say that its even scarier they actually try to play test and still end up with these results.

Not really - as I said, its the issue with marking your own work. You know it too well, and so while its ok for an initial cut of a rule (i.e. does it make any kind of sense) , but is bad for objective clarity.

Wayne - "usual" is 7.5, 7 if in london, but thats widely ignored, especially with creatives, management etc. My friends often work crazy hours at GW, which is partly that they love their job.

Purely for my own curiosity, do your friends at GW acknowledge/understand the balance/rules issues with the game?

I dont converse too much on that - I dont really want to potentially put them in an awkward situation with work, given GW being quite so secrecy-sensitive these last few years.

One is, anyway, on the fluff / backrgound side, and while he has contact with rules, isnt so involved in the development - he knows what they do, and some, but isnt involved day to day.

The other is in rules writing, but also has an external comms role which, I understand, is quite new - so fingers crossed that WILL mean some form of improvement. They are, however, cursed with a long memory; they have been burnt by people breaking agreements before, leading to leaked information whcih CAN be damaging, given their release cycle (all at once vs drip feed updates inflicts very different buying habits) , and so they are reluctant to engage.

WayneTheGame wrote:
I don't believe for a minute that they actually playtest by setting up specific conditions to test e.g. what if X unit with ability A is within 12" of Y unit with ability B.

I would be very happy if 40k suffered from that kind of balance issue...

Most of the time, we're not even talking about combos, but things like "unit A is hilariously overpowered, unit B is grossly overcosted, let's take plenty of A, and leave B on the shelf". It almost always worked that way, from the leafblower to the Scythe/Drake/Stormraven spams to the serpent lists and the daemon bucket-o'-dice.

The only recent exception that actually involved some kind of complex interactions was the TauDar alliance.

 Daedleh wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Daedleh wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well their profits in the past few years have been as good or better than during the LoTR boom years.

They haven't. £14.3m in 2003 is the equivalent of £19.7m today. ... ...

And this is all in the context of their market increasing by double digits each year.

The figures I gave are already corrected to 2013 constant value. They did not make 14.3 million in 2003.

Gotcha, I stand corrected

However, the point of price rises being much, much higher than inflation meaning that there has been a significant drop in sales in that time still stands

I agree with you.

GW have aggressively increased prices over the past five years or so. For example, codexes cost double now what they did in 2012. This has caused vocal discontent among the user base, and revenue has remained fairly steady.

The implication is that if prices went up 50% and revenues stayed level, the company actually sold 66% as many kits as before, or lost 1/3rd of its users (or a mixture of both). These figures are made up for the sake of illustration. I have no idea what the overall price increase has been, though in some areas it obviously has been considerable.

On constant revenue, profits have increased due to efficiency savings, such the one man shop policy, and dropping metal and the bitz service.

The danger for GW is if they have underestimated the importance of veterans in recruitment of new players and/or in long tail sales. They can survive buy selling expensive armies to new players only as long as new players are attracted to the game.

I dont keep up with miniature gaming outside of GW, which I consider myself a part-timer at just that, but it seems to me, that the quality of GW's art and products, and the ability to produce so much in plastic, tells me they have to be the envy of most gaming companies. The only two companies I think that are even close in scraping up any market share that GW doesnt have would be the makers of Warmachine/Hordes, and Flames of War. I know there are many many other gaming companies out there, but I am just considering the part of the market that produces miniatures that you build and paint.

GW might have financial issues from time to time, as everyone else, but geez they have been around for decades now. Some of their products, like the Eldar Falcon and Space Marine Land Raider, are unchanged yet cost quite a lot of money. Those molds have been around forever. I know GW has to refresh its products here and there, but they seem to get a lot out of most of the designs, with resources to put towards some pretty ambitious designs, like the Wraithknights and Riptides. I dont know of any gaming company that can put out gaming models of that size. And I am sure those molds will eventually pay themselves off, if they havent already, and remain around as is for years for come.

While I disagree with GWs practices sometimes, they seem to have a business model that seems to work. They have managed to keep people interested in their games for quite some time now. Thats impressive.

I expect them to remain around for a long time until someone else can put out something that knocks 40k off its perch, which I dont see happening. A lot of games have come and gone, yet GW is still putting out great products, not just getting by.

Due to the high retail costs, the ROI on the older kits, where the sprues were damned expensive, was suprisingly long - the old plastic rhino was essentially only in profit the year before it was replaced.

Not everyone likes GW stores, however they do act, in the UK at least, as a very good introduction to the world of wargaming, and in the UK at least companies would struggle to "recruit" sufficiently well otherwise. That may only be temporary, but companies can struggle very quickly if they lose momentum.

KTG17 wrote:


I expect them to remain around for a long time until someone else can put out something that knocks 40k off its perch, which I dont see happening. A lot of games have come and gone, yet GW is still putting out great products, not just getting by.

So you don't have any experience with miniature games outside GW, yet still make the claim that GW products are "great"?

Because they really, really aren't. Apart from the technical quality of their plastic kits, everything else that they produce is pretty much below par for the rest of the industry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
I dont converse too much on that - I dont really want to potentially put them in an awkward situation with work, given GW being quite so secrecy-sensitive these last few years.

One is, anyway, on the fluff / backrgound side, and while he has contact with rules, isnt so involved in the development - he knows what they do, and some, but isnt involved day to day.

The other is in rules writing, but also has an external comms role which, I understand, is quite new - so fingers crossed that WILL mean some form of improvement. They are, however, cursed with a long memory; they have been burnt by people breaking agreements before, leading to leaked information whcih CAN be damaging, given their release cycle (all at once vs drip feed updates inflicts very different buying habits) , and so they are reluctant to engage.

So you have a friend in GW's rules writing but the issue of the perception of GW rules outside the development studio never came up in conversation? Right...

PhantomViper wrote:

KTG17 wrote:


The other is in rules writing, but also has an external comms role which, I understand, is quite new - so fingers crossed that WILL mean some form of improvement. They are, however, cursed with a long memory; they have been burnt by people breaking agreements before, leading to leaked information whcih CAN be damaging, given their release cycle (all at once vs drip feed updates inflicts very different buying habits) , and so they are reluctant to engage.

So you have a friend in GW's rules writing but the issue of the perception of GW rules outside the development studio never came up in conversation? Right...

Or it did come up, but he's choosing not to share with random spods on the internet. Where things are never blown out of proportion or distorted.

PhantomViper wrote:

KTG17 wrote:


I expect them to remain around for a long time until someone else can put out something that knocks 40k off its perch, which I dont see happening. A lot of games have come and gone, yet GW is still putting out great products, not just getting by.

So you don't have any experience with miniature games outside GW, yet still make the claim that GW products are "great"?

Because they really, really aren't. Apart from the technical quality of their plastic kits, everything else that they produce is pretty much below par for the rest of the industry.

Compared to who? Like what? Maybe the rules people have an issue with, but I have never seen anyone pick up a rulebook or codex and say, "wow this artwork sucks". All their large books are hardcover, while everyone else is softcover. Looks to me like better quality. Even though it comes with a higher price.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

KTG17 wrote:


The other is in rules writing, but also has an external comms role which, I understand, is quite new - so fingers crossed that WILL mean some form of improvement. They are, however, cursed with a long memory; they have been burnt by people breaking agreements before, leading to leaked information whcih CAN be damaging, given their release cycle (all at once vs drip feed updates inflicts very different buying habits) , and so they are reluctant to engage.

So you have a friend in GW's rules writing but the issue of the perception of GW rules outside the development studio never came up in conversation? Right...

Or it did come up, but he's choosing not to share with random spods on the internet. Where things are never blown out of proportion or distorted.

I never said any of that!

And it's not like his friend is going to just come out and say that monkey randomly banging on a keyboard could write better rules than he's paid a salary to...

 agnosto wrote:
And it's not like his friend is going to just come out and say that monkey randomly banging on a keyboard could write better rules than he's paid a salary to...

Nah that's what we're for.

KTG17 wrote:Compared to who? Like what? Maybe the rules people have an issue with, but I have never seen anyone pick up a rulebook or codex and say, "wow this artwork sucks". All their large books are hardcover, while everyone else is softcover. Looks to me like better quality. Even though it comes with a higher price.

You obviously haven't been paying much attention then...

Battlefront does most of their books in hardcover.
Privateer Press does all their books in hardcover (though they tend to switch to softcover for reprints)
Spartan Games do many of their books in hardcover.

Need I go on?

And the real kicker is that these books are typically of vastly better value - both in raw page-count and in the actual content - than what Games Workshop does. Better priced too...

As for artwork... What artwork? The Ork Codex pretty much did away with that. Because just taking a picture is much cheaper than hiring an actual artist. It looks absolutely terrible! And as for the rest of the codex (and Heaven will know there isn't much left once you've stripped out all the pictures), it's badly laid out and entirely uninspired.

Quite besides, equating hardcover with quality is highly debatable. I'd certainly rather carry a slim softcover around when gaming than a monstrous hardcover. But each to his own...

PP gives you the choice of hard and soft covers. You can order either on their site though my local store usually just carries the soft cover.
The RPG books come in hardcover though and have higher page count, stuffed with information and fluff (which is fantastic btw) and has great artwork. And I'm not even getting into the quality of the rules.

Ork dex had photos of the units, not artwork. That's a step backwards and the cover of 7th looks hideous.

 jonolikespie wrote:


Those figures are.... very much not the whole picture.

While yes, that probably is telling GW they are doing it right, there is mounting evidence that they have lost a massive amount of sales in the last 12 months or so. Their mid year report clearly ruffled their feathers. The guys over at Painting Buddha (the guy responsible for the Future of Games Workshop articles, if you haven 't read them go google that before discussing anything here) where saying that they where hearing that GW stores across Europe where struggling to make 50% of the sales they where this time last year..

Ah, the internet.

Where something some fella on a website heard is better evidence than company results (adjusted for inflation).

Where if someone doesn't work for a company, that's exactly the same as if they do work for a company, and if you say being employed and not being employed are different states, you're an 'apologist.'

No confirmation bias here. No sirree.

A shame, 'cos the issue of whether GW will survive is actually an intriguing one.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:


Those figures are.... very much not the whole picture.

While yes, that probably is telling GW they are doing it right, there is mounting evidence that they have lost a massive amount of sales in the last 12 months or so. Their mid year report clearly ruffled their feathers. The guys over at Painting Buddha (the guy responsible for the Future of Games Workshop articles, if you haven 't read them go google that before discussing anything here) where saying that they where hearing that GW stores across Europe where struggling to make 50% of the sales they where this time last year..

Ah, the internet.

Where something some fella on a website heard is better evidence than company results (adjusted for inflation).

Where if someone doesn't work for a company, that's exactly the same as if they do work for a company, and if you say being employed and not being employed are different states, you're an 'apologist.'

No confirmation bias here. No sirree.

A shame, 'cos the issue of whether GW will survive is actually an intriguing one.

You haven't read it, have you?

Whereas a current GW employee DID state in a court of law that GW customers hobby is buying GW product and several other less flattering characterizations of their customer base.

Phantomviper- I don't know you from Adam, and have nothing to prove to you, or anyone else on this site. What I discuss with my friends is unlikely to be any of your business. Hence why I have told you how you can actually do something constructive, and more verifiable, instead.

But then, casting aspersions on other peoples characters while behind a keyboard is SO much more useful instead. Good going!

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

KTG17 wrote:


The other is in rules writing, but also has an external comms role which, I understand, is quite new - so fingers crossed that WILL mean some form of improvement. They are, however, cursed with a long memory; they have been burnt by people breaking agreements before, leading to leaked information whcih CAN be damaging, given their release cycle (all at once vs drip feed updates inflicts very different buying habits) , and so they are reluctant to engage.

So you have a friend in GW's rules writing but the issue of the perception of GW rules outside the development studio never came up in conversation? Right...

Or it did come up, but he's choosing not to share with random spods on the internet. Where things are never blown out of proportion or distorted.

Then nosferatu1001 shouldn't try to make an appeal to authority argument by using that "I have friends in GW" line.

Also, you misquoted, I was quoting nosferatu1001 in that post, not KTG17.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Phantomviper- I don't know you from Adam, and have nothing to prove to you, or anyone else on this site. What I discuss with my friends is unlikely to be any of your business. Hence why I have told you how you can actually do something constructive, and more verifiable, instead.

But then, casting aspersions on other peoples characters while behind a keyboard is SO much more useful instead. Good going!

You brought it up in this conversation relating to GW's inner workings. Now you're saying that it's none of our business?

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Phantomviper- I don't know you from Adam, and have nothing to prove to you, or anyone else on this site. What I discuss with my friends is unlikely to be any of your business. Hence why I have told you how you can actually do something constructive, and more verifiable, instead.

But then, casting aspersions on other peoples characters while behind a keyboard is SO much more useful instead. Good going!

No, you don't have anything to prove. But all the posts that I've read from you so far only consist of your personal attacks on other posters without any shred of evidence to back up your claims, including this latest strings of appeal to authority, so don't try and act all upset when people call you on it.

Echoing azreal again here: if this is the result of them playtesting... then I don't know what to say. It's horrifying.

 heartserenade wrote:
Echoing azreal again here: if this is the result of them playtesting... then I don't know what to say. It's horrifying.

Too right. If this is the cleaned-up version, I would hate to see the rough draft. *cringe*

 MWHistorian wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Phantomviper- I don't know you from Adam, and have nothing to prove to you, or anyone else on this site. What I discuss with my friends is unlikely to be any of your business. Hence why I have told you how you can actually do something constructive, and more verifiable, instead.

But then, casting aspersions on other peoples characters while behind a keyboard is SO much more useful instead. Good going!

You brought it up in this conversation relating to GW's inner workings. Now you're saying that it's none of our business?

Which is why I suspect its pure unadulterated male bovine excrement.

 Grimtuff wrote:

So he just magically formed this opinion after leaving GW? Erm, no.

There's being an apologist and there's being an apologist. But, damn...

To play devils advocate though, an individual's views do not necessarily reflect those of their company. Standard corporate spiel. One guy going off on a rant is not necessarily an accurate indicator for what way the wind is blowing.

Now, I don't doubt there is a tsr-esque contempt for gamers going on amongst some sections of the company, nor do I dismiss the possibility it is the majority view. But We simply do not know.

But what i do know is that I have met jervis. And he was a very pleseant guy. I got no sense of this utter hatred of gamers wafting from him. He's just a guy, at the end of the day, who enjoys rolling dice and not taking his wargames too seriously. I'm sympathetic to this 'vision' that they want their game to be, despite my personal disagreement with its merits. It's old school. It's dated. It's probably obselete. But it's nice to believe in it, nonetheless.

My mates have also met allessio (he came to our con a few years ago with his game shurro) and Andy chambers. Again, no sense of utter hatred from them either.

I am friends with some of the (admittedly, former) playtesters. And they were a very professional crew. (But for what it's worth, gw didn't always care to listen to them!)Even though a lot of this external playtesting was canned at the start of fifth due to leaks etc., they still found time to call some of these playtesters and 'feel out' some ideas with them as to what direction they should take with subsequent codices. No, they didn't get any say in the actual 'crunch' of the rules design, but did have a say in overall direction, themes and ideas. Whether gw implemented them well or not - well, that's another story!

Now, to take this in another direction - and again, playing devils advocate - this idea of holding gamers in some form of contempt. Let's look in the mirror for a second. It's not always a nice reflection. Let's face it -whilst a lot of us are just ordinary folks, there are plenty gamers that are simply obnoxious self entitled brats with terrible hygiene and even worse social manners. We've all seen the 'tfg' threads and 'worst opponent ever' threads. They exist. Imagine dealing with them every day? Imagine constantly seeing your name put through the mud on the internet by them every day. Every decision scrutinised, and every action analysed and deemed irrevocably wrong at best, and terrible at worst, often by people who have never met you, or worked in the industry, but are still armchair experts. Any second, third or fourth hand rumour, whether right or wrong, embellished and repeated. People who are great at tearing things down, but never offer anything constructive, that whine and moan at every action instead of just getting on with it, people who hurl the vilest disgusting insults at you (google Matt ward hate...) from the anonymous safety if the internet. think about it. Think about being on the other end. Just for a second. Now bear in mind, I'm not saying this is the attitude presented by 'the community' either. Maybe not even by anyone here. But I can imagine this 'fanmail' exists. I can imagine facing it, that it's extremely disheartening. Especially when a lot it it isn't necessarily you're doing (you're given a design brief, and a deadline, not creative freedom. You are a cog in a machine, nothing more). Like I said - disheartening. Is it any wonder that you would go into siege mode, and have issues with the community? Bear in mind, this is just a thought exercise, nothing more.

Deadnight wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

So he just magically formed this opinion after leaving GW? Erm, no.

There's being an apologist and there's being an apologist. But, damn...

To play devils advocate though, an individual's views do not necessarily reflect those of their company. Standard corporate spiel. One guy going off on a rant is not necessarily an accurate indicator for what way the wind is blowing.

Now, I don't doubt there is a tsr-esque contempt for gamers going on amongst some sections of the company, nor do I dismiss the possibility it is the majority view. But We simply do not know.

But what i do know is that I have met jervis. And he was a very pleseant guy. I got no sense of this utter hatred of gamers wafting from him. He's just a guy, at the end of the day, who enjoys rolling dice and not taking his wargames too seriously. I'm sympathetic to this 'vision' that they want their game to be, despite my personal disagreement with its merits. It's old school. It's dated. It's probably obselete. But it's nice to believe in it, nonetheless.

My mates have also met allessio (he came to our con a few years ago with his game shurro) and Andy chambers. Again, no sense of utter hatred from them either.

I am friends with some of the (admittedly, former) playtesters. And they were a very professional crew. (But for what it's worth, gw didn't always care to listen to them!)Even though a lot of this external playtesting was canned at the start of fifth due to leaks etc., they still found time to call some of these playtesters and 'feel out' some ideas with them as to what direction they should take with subsequent codices. No, they didn't get any say in the actual 'crunch' of the rules design, but did have a say in overall direction, themes and ideas. Whether gw implemented them well or not - well, that's another story!

Now, to take this in another direction - and again, playing devils advocate - this idea of holding gamers in some form of contempt. Let's look in the mirror for a second. It's not always a nice reflection. Let's face it -whilst a lot of us are just ordinary folks, there are plenty gamers that are simply obnoxious self entitled brats with terrible hygiene and even worse social manners. We've all seen the 'tfg' threads and 'worst opponent ever' threads. They exist. Imagine dealing with them every day? Imagine constantly seeing your name put through the mud on the internet by them every day. Every decision scrutinised, and every action analysed and deemed irrevocably wrong at best, and terrible at worst, often by people who have never met you, or worked in the industry, but are still armchair experts. Any second, third or fourth hand rumour, whether right or wrong, embellished and repeated. People who are great at tearing things down, but never offer anything constructive, that whine and moan at every action instead of just getting on with it, people who hurl the vilest disgusting insults at you (google Matt ward hate...) from the anonymous safety if the internet. think about it. Think about being on the other end. Just for a second. Now bear in mind, I'm not saying this is the attitude presented by 'the community' either. Maybe not even by anyone here. But I can imagine this 'fanmail' exists. I can imagine facing it, that it's extremely disheartening. Especially when a lot it it isn't necessarily you're doing (you're given a design brief, and a deadline, not creative freedom. You are a cog in a machine, nothing more). Like I said - disheartening. Is it any wonder that you would go into siege mode, and have issues with the community? Bear in mind, this is just a thought exercise, nothing more.

You make several great points and you're probably right.
However, I can't say whether the contempt for their players is widespread, but I will say that they do nothing to counter that opinion. They don't communicate with their customers and that let's frustration and negative rumors spread without hindrance. It's like ignoring a fire without trying to put it out. Yeah, it's unpleasant, but you have to do it. Every other company does.
I'm a sci-fantasy author/illustrator that goes to conventions all the time. There's always TFG that wants to make a panel all about them instead of the authors speaking. You learn to deal with it. You have to because its part of the business.

 MWHistorian wrote:

You make several great points and you're probably right.
However, I can't say whether the contempt for their players is widespread, but I will say that they do nothing to counter that opinion...

I think you've captured this in a nutshell.

really, there is no evidence that GW hates us. However, they don't talk to us. That in itself is A Bad Thing.

Anyone whose phone calls or emails aren't returned, will often assume the other party must hate them - it's basic psychology. And it is indeed Games Workshop's duty to make its users like them, not vice versa. In that respect they've undoubtedly failed, and this is bad for their business. I was always impressed by how both Warhammer Wolrd and GW digital interacted with their customers on facebook; only an idiot would think that getting rid of their interaction would be a Good Thing.

But remember, never ascribe to malice, that which is more easily explained by laziness or incompetence.