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It's a revenue stream. GW doesn't care if you ever play a single game of 40K with their models, so long as you keep buying models and sticking them on a shelf.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't care what GW's opinion of me may or may not be. I care that the products they put out should be ones I want to buy and play with.

BTW I understand that GW have stopped putting the name of the designer as the author of codexes. It is credited to The Studio or something like that.

Personally I think if GW lowered prices it would lower complaining across the board. Most people agree the models are awesome but overpriced. If the cost were lower I think people would also stop complaining about game balance.

 Random Dude wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't care what GW's opinion of me may or may not be. I care that the products they put out should be ones I want to buy and play with.

BTW I understand that GW have stopped putting the name of the designer as the author of codexes. It is credited to The Studio or something like that.

Personally I think if GW lowered prices it would lower complaining across the board. Most people agree the models are awesome but overpriced. If the cost were lower I think people would also stop complaining about game balance.

I certainly wouldn't feel like my wallet was lifted by a petty thug if the rulebooks are around the $20-$30 mark...

 agnosto wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't care what GW's opinion of me may or may not be. I care that the products they put out should be ones I want to buy and play with.

BTW I understand that GW have stopped putting the name of the designer as the author of codexes. It is credited to The Studio or something like that.

Personally I think if GW lowered prices it would lower complaining across the board. Most people agree the models are awesome but overpriced. If the cost were lower I think people would also stop complaining about game balance.

I certainly wouldn't feel like my wallet was lifted by a petty thug if the rulebooks are around the $20-$30 mark...

It's easier to expect more from a company when they're asking for so much money. If they didn't charge so much we wouldn't expect so much, and as a result there would be less complaining.

 Peregrine wrote:
But how serious is that lack of respect? I mean, complaining about how much customers suck is an ancient and sacred tradition among everyone who has to deal with customers, so a "gamers suck" rant is exactly what I'd expect to see occasionally. Yeah, letting it out in public is something you never do (and the idiot should be punished for it), but the rant itself is nothing unusual.

That's the thing, though. Making that rant public is incredibly unprofessional, and in many companies would have scored him a serious paddlin'.

Letting your customers think that they're anything other than a treasured asset is bad for business.

Similarly, the "they love buying stuff" thing wasn't an honest opinion, it was a calculated strategy for winning a trial. GW wanted to establish how much their customers love Genuine™ Games™ Workshop™ Products™ to convince the court that they were suffering real financial damage from the third-party sales, so of course they're going to emphasize the buying/collecting aspect instead of the rest of the hobby.

Which, again, shows a lack of professionalism. The impact of making such a statement should have been considered before they made it.

Then again, a more professional company wouldn't have been involved in that court case in the first place.

The real concern here would be if GW actually bases their decisions on these opinions instead of understanding that they're just talk. For example, was the death of Games Day because GW genuinely thought that their customers love buying stuff above all else and would keep coming to an event even after all that was left was the GW store, or was it a case of budget problems forcing them to cut and cut until nothing was left?

Or somebody realising that when you have just established in court that your primary focus is on selling 'collectible art' to gullible idiots rather than on the making and playing of games, calling your premier event 'Games Day' might be an issue...?

 Random Dude wrote:


It's easier to expect more from a company when they're asking for so much money. If they didn't charge so much we wouldn't expect so much, and as a result there would be less complaining.

Ehhh, that's a stretch. Quite a big one, when you consider the cost of rules from other companies and their level of quality.

GW's rules would have to be free for me not to take issue with balance problems and poor wording (and even then, I'd expect more than their current offering).

If a company is going to charge anything for a product, I expect quality, and frankly, the company producing should expect quality of themselves.

If 7th was $30 for the rules (in a smaller rulebook), I'd still have the same issues, complaints, and gripes. The only difference would be that I wouldn't be taking issue with the price in addition to the other stuff.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:


It's easier to expect more from a company when they're asking for so much money. If they didn't charge so much we wouldn't expect so much, and as a result there would be less complaining.

Ehhh, that's a stretch. Quite a big one, when you consider the cost of rules from other companies and their level of quality.

GW's rules would have to be free for me not to take issue with balance problems and poor wording (and even then, I'd expect more than their current offering).

If a company is going to charge anything for a product, I expect quality, and frankly, the company producing should expect quality of themselves.

If 7th was $30 for the rules (in a smaller rulebook), I'd still have the same issues, complaints, and gripes. The only difference would be that I wouldn't be taking issue with the price in addition to the other stuff.

You might still not like it, but would you complain less?

 Random Dude wrote:


You might still not like it, but would you complain less?

Only about the price.

The issues with the rules would still exist, therefore, remain a sticking point for actual gameplay.

Oddly enough, the price of something has never affected my enjoyment during gameplay, just the happiness of my wife when the mortgage is due.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Random Dude wrote:


You might still not like it, but would you complain less?

Only about the price.

The issues with the rules would still exist, therefore, remain a sticking point for actual gameplay.

Oddly enough, the price of something has never affected my enjoyment during gameplay, just the happiness of my wife when the mortgage is due.

Which is highly important!

 Random Dude wrote:


Which is highly important!

To my life in general, certainly.

To my enjoyment of a wargame in my off time, very little. When I'm rolling dice, I don't reflect on how much I spent on the rules, I get frustrated by having to flip through five sections to find out there's no rule covering a situation that arose mid-game.

Price is important for many things; how the game plays is not one of them. I'd be more concerned with how it affects the barrier to entry to get new friends into the game. Or how many armies I plan on owning. Or once again, how my wife reacts when I tell her I bought a bunch of games on Steam and a Leman Russ tank.

About GW making a 40K game like Plant vs Zombies and it is devaluing the product.

I thought GW for this very reason doesn't have sales so it doesn't devalue it's product. So why would they make these games that make 40K look childish and foolish? If this doesn't devalue a product, I can't see how sales would then.

Davor wrote:
About GW making a 40K game like Plant vs Zombies and it is devaluing the product.

I thought GW for this very reason doesn't have sales so it doesn't devalue it's product. So why would they make these games that make 40K look childish and foolish? If this doesn't devalue a product, I can't see how sales would then.

I think desire for short-term profit is superseding concerns over product devaluation.

That, and crappy mobile games don't impact the slogan "We sell the best miniatures in the world!"

 insaniak wrote:
That's the thing, though. Making that rant public is incredibly unprofessional, and in many companies would have scored him a serious paddlin'.

Letting your customers think that they're anything other than a treasured asset is bad for business.

But we don't know that he didn't get a serous paddlin'. In fact people can't even agree on whether or not he was still employed by GW when he made that post. IIRC in the original discussion he appeared to be looking for a job, so it's entirely possible that his attitude got him fired.

Which, again, shows a lack of professionalism. The impact of making such a statement should have been considered before they made it.

What impact? That a few random people on a forum might laugh at how stupid it is? Most of GW's customers have probably never even heard of the case, and certainly aren't studying all of the details of what GW said. So that leaves the impact on the court case, where GW is trying to convince a bunch of non-gamers that their sales have suffered as a result of third-party manufacturers using their IP.

Then again, a more professional company wouldn't have been involved in that court case in the first place.

I agree, getting involved at all was a questionable decision and GW's handling of the case was hilariously incompetent, but that's an entirely different subject. Having a zealous and incompetent legal department doesn't have anything to do with how the rest of the company sees their customers, how game design decisions are made, etc.

Or somebody realising that when you have just established in court that your primary focus is on selling 'collectible art' to gullible idiots rather than on the making and playing of games, calling your premier event 'Games Day' might be an issue...?

I seriously doubt that had anything to do with it. GD was declining since before GW made that statement in court, the official end this year was just GW putting a dying event out of its misery. It's like the White Dwarf re-branding, the current brand name is associated with a terrible product, so re-launch it under a new name and hope you get some customers back.

Now, it's entirely possible that the reason for the decline was GW's belief that the game aspect doesn't matter as long as there's a store to buy GW products, and that would certainly be a bad sign for the long-term future of the company. But we don't know that this was the explanation, rather than simply having to cut the budget every year or other reasons that don't involve GW believing their own propaganda.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Except they are not making any money. This isn't worth the time it took a Lawyer to draft an agreement. At these levels of sales, they have likely lost money just in man-hours. And it diminishes the brand to be engaging in minor commercialization efforts such as these. They look cheap.

Irrelevant. If the game doesn't sell it's not the end of the world for them. They already have their money.

GW is not going under. Quite the opposite I think. I don't know whether their change in business strategy is down to their 'relatively' new ownership or not (I suspect it is), but what I do know is that they are using the same strategies that movies, and to a greater extent video games are using whereby they are maximising profits by following the advice of a bunch of guys that make mathematical calculations on how to best increase profits with no regard whatsoever for the games/IP/fans/customers.
Movies have devolved over the past few decades whereby the age rating of movies in cinemas has notably dropped now unless they are the occasional gratuitous piece of bs to sate the psychotics in our society. Why? Because someone calculated they can make more money and affect more minds if movies have a lower rating cos they will attract a bigger audience.
Much more closely tied to what GW is doing however is the behaviour of the video game market. Just watch this link which I think is hitting the nail on the fething head and every time he says 'extra characters' or 'patch' replace that with the words 'codex supplement' and 'downloadable bullgak' with 'digital editions'.
Last time I came on this forum I didn't like how people where acting so I stopped coming here for a while. But since I see GW releaseing the ugliset peice of gak flyer cash-in for my Wolves I felt the need to come back. Yeah they dont teleport so a flyer makes sense, but.............. There are loads of flyers they could give us access to and me personally I would prefer a universal outflank. This is a trick to make money. Anyway, even if you dont agree with that, watch the link and replace words as instructed. I have my models, GW isnt getting anything more from me. Please do not try to circumvent the swear filter and please note rule 1 - MDS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sphxtLb5pO4

You know, putting spaces between the letters in curse words doesn't make them suddenly not curse words.

 Psy-Titan wrote:
GW is not going under. Quite the opposite I think.

Contrary to all evidence?

GW isn't going under, but they're certainly not going up either. They're plateauing. They are raising prices and cutting costs... and going no where but sideways.

 Random Dude wrote:
You might still not like it, but would you complain less?

I think the reverse would be a lot more true - higher quality rules would reduce complaints about prices. If there was a solid game with minimal problems that were fixed quickly when found I would complain less about price as the value of the models and books would have increased substantially.

Decreasing the price would satisfy the modelers and reduce their complaints substantially but the gamers still wouldn't have a fun game to play so those complaints would still stand.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Psy-Titan wrote:
GW is not going under. Quite the opposite I think.

Contrary to all evidence?

GW isn't going under, but they're certainly not going up either. They're plateauing. They are raising prices and cutting costs... and going no where but sideways.

Yeah, I'm in full agreement with HBMC on this. The prices raises to models (both literal and through lowering model counts in boxes) coupled with a new MO on revenue generation on rules (i.e. books with shorter lifespans, broken up into more books) seems to have staved off any significant decline in revenue. However, I feel these techniques are rather short-sided and are hiding the diminishing population of 40k players/collectors. Many 40k fans may be die-hard fans that never give up the hobby- heck, more power to them! But I think the anecdotes of less 40k players in stores are systemic of a wargaming population that is less interested in playing a tabletop game with such a high cost.

 Accolade wrote:
You know, putting spaces between the letters in curse words doesn't make them suddenly not curse words.

Rule 1 - MDS

 Psy-Titan wrote:


rule 1 - MDS .

In contradiction of dakka's cursing policy?

Maybe you should avoid calling people smart ass when you're breaking forum policies.

 Psy-Titan wrote:


rule 1 - MDS .

You do realize the word filter is there for a reason right? Mostly because people with titles and certain abilities on the forum take note when people use them or intentionally bypass the filter.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

 Psy-Titan wrote:


No, but it does stop Dakka auto correcting them smart ass.

You do realize the word filter is there for a reason right? Mostly because people with titles and certain abilities on the forum take note when people use them or intentionally bypass the filter.

And....................?
What?

rule 1 - MDS

I'm surprised you all caught that. I started skimming it when he called GWs owners (relatively) new.

*edit*
Wow.... Classy.

 Psy-Titan wrote:


And....................?
What?

-rule 1 - MDS

If someone is breaking rule 1 blatantly, it would be helpful if folks just click on the olde circle of friendship, and generally avoid quoting the questionable content. No issues with anyone, just passing on that thought. Cheers - MDS

 Psy-Titan wrote:
GW is not going under. Quite the opposite I think. I don't know whether their change in business strategy is down to their 'relatively' new ownership or not (I suspect it is), but what I do know is that they are using the same strategies that movies, and to a greater extent video games are using whereby they are maximising profits by following the advice of a bunch of guys that make mathematical calculations on how to best increase profits with no regard whatsoever for the games/IP/fans/customers.
Movies have devolved over the past few decades whereby the age rating of movies in cinemas has notably dropped now unless they are the occasional gratuitous piece of bs to sate the psychotics in our society. Why? Because someone calculated they can make more money and affect more minds if movies have a lower rating cos they will attract a bigger audience.
Much more closely tied to what GW is doing however is the behaviour of the video game market. Just watch this link which I think is hitting the nail on the fething head and every time he says 'extra characters' or 'patch' replace that with the words 'codex supplement' and 'downloadable bullgak' with 'digital editions'.
Last time I came on this forum I didn't like how people where acting so I stopped coming here for a while. But since I see GW releaseing the ugliset peice of gak flyer cash-in for my Wolves I felt the need to come back. Yeah they dont teleport so a flyer makes sense, but.............. There are loads of flyers they could give us access to and me personally I would prefer a universal outflank. This is a trick to make money. Anyway, even if you dont agree with that, watch the link and replace words as instructed. I have my models, GW isnt getting anything more from me. Please do not try to circumvent the swear filter and please note rule 1 - MDS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sphxtLb5pO4

Awwww, you're adorable.

Can we keep him?

Seriously though everyone is entitled to their opinion, if you want people to listen to it, consider it and take it seriously, you really need to ensure that it is well informed.

 Psy-Titan wrote:
Movies have devolved over the past few decades whereby the age rating of movies in cinemas has notably dropped now unless they are the occasional gratuitous piece of bs to sate the psychotics in our society. Why? Because someone calculated they can make more money and affect more minds if movies have a lower rating cos they will attract a bigger audience.

Uh, no. There are more movies coming out with a PG rating than there were a decade ago because there's more stuff being allowed into a PG-rated movie that would have pushed it into an M rating a decade ago.

And that really has nothing to do with what GW are doing.


The shift to DLC is something that has been discussed a lot, and it's had a mixed reception from gamers. Whether or not it is working for GW financially is something that remains to be seen. It would need to be working spectacularly well to make up for the number of codex sales I suspect that they have lost from the shift to more expensive hardcovers.

 Random Dude wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't care what GW's opinion of me may or may not be. I care that the products they put out should be ones I want to buy and play with.

BTW I understand that GW have stopped putting the name of the designer as the author of codexes. It is credited to The Studio or something like that.

Personally I think if GW lowered prices it would lower complaining across the board. Most people agree the models are awesome but overpriced. If the cost were lower I think people would also stop complaining about game balance.

Yah know, you can try and sell me a genitalia flavored portable confection, but no matter if it's $85 or $30 or $10, I probably still am not going to enjoy myself. While the price is asinine, the quality is by far the biggest offender. The value is right behind it, with codices containing one unit and calling that a $50 game book. Keep your confections.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't care what GW's opinion of me may or may not be. I care that the products they put out should be ones I want to buy and play with.

BTW I understand that GW have stopped putting the name of the designer as the author of codexes. It is credited to The Studio or something like that.

Apparently the writers are embarrassed to admit that they wrote such terrible books.