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Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

To be honest, I agree with you. Everything is complain, I get some of it but some of it is ridiculous! At this stage Games workshop can't do anything without slack. Arguably it is there fault for bringing the company down but they can't be ALL bad, we buy and love there minis don't we?

Maybe if GW has spent the past decade fostering good will instead of stoney silence things might be different now.
As for not engaging customers, every other wargame company does it to great success. The build up of excitement for Operation Ice storm was a great thing, far better than if they had just released it with two days of warning.

Yeah, I don't buy this for a second. Made up email is made up.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Maybe if GW has spent the past decade fostering good will instead of stoney silence things might be different now.
As for not engaging customers, every other wargame company does it to great success. The build up of excitement for Operation Ice storm was a great thing, far better than if they had just released it with two days of warning.

This exactly. Sure, by now it's hopeless for GW - bringing up forums or trying to engage the internet can only lead to failure without a LOT of effort - genuine effort - put behind it on the part of GW.
That's not the internet's fault. That's GW's fault for letting it get that far in the first place. If you tell your boss repeatedly over the course of 10 years or so that he's requiring too many hours and not paying enough, when he finally comes to you and says "I heard you're looking for a new job - here's some extra money!" it's too little, too late.

Yeah, it's terrible. GW can't raise prices hand over fist, write some of the worst rules in the wargaming hobby, repeatedly and observably declare their contempt for customers, extort those in the few parts of the world that don't happen to be Britain, treat indy retailers like ticks that have to be burned off, (try to) squash little model makers for making something that GW doesn't own, bully authors who happen to use and arrange words of the English language etc. etc. in peace, without some spotty little goit somehow coming to the conclusion that all of that isn't productive or admirable.

You anti-GW whiners should be ashamed for jumping to such a wild conclusion.

 dakkajet wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

To be honest, I agree with you. Everything is complain, I get some of it but some of it is ridiculous! At this stage Games workshop can't do anything without slack. Arguably it is there fault for bringing the company down but they can't be ALL bad, we buy and love there minis don't we?

A lot of us don't buy and love their minis anymore because they're overpriced and not good in the game that they forget is the reason for most sales. They can't do anything without slack because they don't do anything worthwhile. It's all overpriced designed to be impulse bought using 1980s era business tactics with zero thought to the actual game.

The game is bad, and GW is bad. The only redeeming factor is that the minis are actually pretty good, but compounded by overly high price-to-value ratio for no reason other than GW feels that their customers--sorry, hobbyists--are suckers who will buy it at any price just to own GW minis.

If they had reasonable price to value ratio on figures (i.e. not giving me a box of 5 guys for $30 when I'll usually need 10, and not making me buy lots of that because they keep making the game larger and larger to push buying more and more) and actually balanced the rules, I'd sell my soul back to GW in a heartbeat because I love the fluff and the story of the game. But they don't, and therefore I return the favor by playing a game made by a company that doesn't make me feel like they're cheating me and with rules that are actually balanced.

 Vermis wrote:
Yeah, it's terrible. GW can't raise prices hand over fist, write some of the worst rules in the wargaming hobby, repeatedly and observably declare their contempt for customers, extort those in the few parts of the world that don't happen to be Britain, treat indy retailers like ticks that have to be burned off, (try to) squash little model makers for making something that GW doesn't own, bully authors who happen to use and arrange words of the English language etc. etc. in peace, without some spotty little goit somehow coming to the conclusion that all of that isn't productive or admirable.

You anti-GW whiners should be ashamed for jumping to such a wild conclusion.

That wins this week's award for "best sarcasm."

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

Have you read the complaints?

Have you read the solutions?

Have you understood GW actions and why people are complaining?

This GW unable to win excuse is tired and wrong. GW can win. I can absolutely, beyond a sliver of doubt that lowering prices/increasing value would be universally met with positivity. I can absolutely assure you that a reasonable preview of upcoming products and general news would be met with thumbs up from everyone. I can assure you a ruleset that has been play tested and proofread by a selected team of closed beta testers and checked by an open beta would be welcome by everyone. I can assure you that re-introducing specialist games would be something GW could win with.

Honestly, saying GW can't win is the laziest argument in GW's defense. Its complete and total nonsense, and if other companies can do it, GW can too.

 Blacksails wrote:
Its complete and total nonsense, and if other companies can do it, GW can too.

Honestly, at this point it's not nonsense. Without a lot of work and change (something GW is obviously unwilling or unable to do) GW will not be able to win back the community it created.
It's just generated too much bad will.

rigeld2 wrote:

Honestly, at this point it's not nonsense. Without a lot of work and change (something GW is obviously unwilling or unable to do) GW will not be able to win back the community it created.
It's just generated too much bad will.

Bolded the important bit.

Yeah, it'd take a lot of work and change. But if they want a positive community, they'll have to start sooner rather than later before there's no community left.

I do agree, there's a lot of bad will from all their actions, but I don't think its insurmountable.

Personally, a price drop and bringing back BFG would change my tune immensely.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Its complete and total nonsense, and if other companies can do it, GW can too.

Honestly, at this point it's not nonsense. Without a lot of work and change (something GW is obviously unwilling or unable to do) GW will not be able to win back the community it created.
It's just generated too much bad will.

I disagree. I think you're right that for some, they are irredeemable, and nothing they do will be good enough.

I think the majority, and I include myself in this, are just looking for an excuse to run back to them like a toddler seeing their mummy after getting lost in the supermarket.

We just need to see a few things, neatly summarised by Blacksails already, and I think there would be a substantial and rapid sea change back in their favour.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Its complete and total nonsense, and if other companies can do it, GW can too.

Honestly, at this point it's not nonsense. Without a lot of work and change (something GW is obviously unwilling or unable to do) GW will not be able to win back the community it created.
It's just generated too much bad will.

True, but the nonsense is the idea that there's some gang of internet trolls just going around crapping on everything GW says or does, when every complaint is valid and is something GW brought upon itself by refusing to acknowledge that they make and sell a tabletop wargame, not collectors figures, and build their business around that concept. Their entire business model is wrong as it's the game which is what enticed people and keeps people playing, and the game is the thing that they ignore as much as possible.

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

Not really, they are pretty consistent in doing things in one particular direction, and its that direction people dont like.

xxvaderxx wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

Not really, they are pretty consistent in doing things in one particular direction, and its that direction people dont like.

They're damned if they keep doing the horrible job they're currently doing.

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

...

To some degree that is true because on the internet there is always someone who will complain about something.

The complaints against GW are not all like that, though.

They genuinely have done a lot in the past five years to make people complain. They have done some other stuff that people liked.

 Blacksails wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

Honestly, at this point it's not nonsense. Without a lot of work and change (something GW is obviously unwilling or unable to do) GW will not be able to win back the community it created.
It's just generated too much bad will.

Bolded the important bit.

Yeah, it'd take a lot of work and change. But if they want a positive community, they'll have to start sooner rather than later before there's no community left.

I do agree, there's a lot of bad will from all their actions, but I don't think its insurmountable.

Personally, a price drop and bringing back BFG would change my tune immensely.

I think that, taking GWs current attitude and direction into account, its insurmountable.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

...

To some degree that is true because on the internet there is always someone who will complain about something.

The complaints against GW are not all like that, though.

They genuinely have done a lot in the past five years to make people complain. They have done some other stuff that people liked.

I think that's very much the case. You will always get a small percentage that will complain; if God/Vishnu came down on a cloud and presented them with the perfect miniature, they would find something wrong with it. The other end of the scale is someone happily extolling the virtues of some mis-cast, over-priced crap and giving the thumbs up as an army they just spent hundreds on is squatted. But, there is a much more sizeable middle ground of fans that move with the flow of the kind of product a company releases, the way the company behaves. They create the general 'atmosphere' of how a company is perceived on the various forums, their volume having more of an effect than the extremes on either end of the scale.

What's incredible I think is that GW had built up so much good will over the years. I think so many of us who played the games through the late 80's, early and mid 90's had such good memories of gaming at that time. The last ten years or so, accelerating over the past few, has just been a relentless BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM, of Ivan Drago hitting with relentless lefts and rights as that good will has been pummelled into the ground. Of Finecast, the price rises, cutting of staff and playing areas, war on independents and legal war on fans and 3rd party producers, I could go on.. all of it has combined to the point where people were seriously using the phrase 'summer of terror' back in 2012.

I know a lot of it is perhaps part of the process of GW becoming a large company with different priorities, but its effects have been felt more perhaps because of what small and personal industry this has always been. In my mind it's a disgrace how it has fallen so far into the kind of sociopathic nightmare of a company that we are presented with today - with luck eventually the money men will notice that perhaps the ship is off course, and start to look at the reasons why; start engaging with their core fan base and treating them with respect again, using independents and small clubs as an opportunity to expand rather than contract, introduce prices that are affordable at the entry level.

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

Well, Dakka is probably the most civilized discussion forum on the topic, and it's a cesspool of hatred and bitterness as far as the eye can see, up to and including its moderators. So, yes.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

Well, Dakka is probably the most civilized discussion forum on the topic, and it's a cesspool of hatred and bitterness as far as the eye can see, up to and including its moderators. So, yes.

What a load of nonsense.

rigeld2 wrote:

I think that, taking GWs current attitude and direction into account, its insurmountable.

Okay, yeah.

We can agree to that.

I mean, we can hope I guess?

 prplehippo wrote:
Don't you guys think that it's gotten to the point that no matter what GW does people will still complain about it?

No matter what any company does, some people will complain about it, because different people like different things.

However, when the complaints start to outweigh the positive comments? That's the point where any sensible company stops and says 'You know what? Maybe, just maybe, we're doing something wrong...' rather than just shutting down all communication and insisting that the problem is just with a few malcontents on the internet despite all evidence to the contrary.

It just seems to me they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

'Don't do anything at all' is not the only alternative to GW's current business direction.

GW do still get plenty of praise when they do something praise-worthy. Plenty of people had good things to say about the Imperial Knight when the model was first shown. Plenty of people had similar good things to say about the new Stormtrooper models. Hell, there still plenty of people who supposedly enjoy 7th edition, as mind boggling as I personally find that to be.

The reason that GW cop a lot of flak isn't that they are GW. It's that they do a lot of stuff that a lot of people don't like.


This isn't just people being obnoxious on the internet... I see these exact same complaints out in the 'real' world. GW are in a bed entirely of their own making.

 insaniak wrote:

However, when the complaints start to outweigh the positive comments? That's the point where any sensible company stops and says 'You know what? Maybe, just maybe, we're doing something wrong...'

No, that's your delusional belief. If a company is still making money, they'd be foolish to care what a horde of screaming idiots say.

In fact, they'd be terrible at their jobs if they did.

Case study: Transformers 2 Metacritic: 35%, Rotten Tomatoes 19%.

According to you, Transformers 3 either shouldn't have been made or should have been in some way much different (it was made, it was the same).

Transformers 3 box office: $1.1 billion.

Scream into the wind all you want, it's meaningless.

The Internet is the Chaos god of Hatred.

If GW revenue didn't appear to be falling fairly quickly, your analogy might hold water.

It's clearly enough for them. It's their decision, not yours.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It's clearly enough for them. It's their decision, not yours.

I'm glad I got chance to quote this before you realised how utterly daft this sentence is and decided to delete or amend it.

I have seldom seen so much incorrectness expressed in so few words.

Do you think being needlessly aggressive makes you more credible?

Me or him?

 Azreal13 wrote:
Me or him?

They guy above you, just ridiculous.

Fair enough - I wasn't feeling in the least bit aggressive, would have been somewhat surprised if you'd meant me but you induced paranoia!