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The long term trends of every company is to steadily increase in value.

But shrinking by double digits YOY is terrible for a PLC with no plausible explanation, and am even bigger drop in profits is also a problem, albeit less so.

I do agree that this topic has been done to death though, and is massively OT.

A few more weeks and we'll have a whole load more info to chew on, but considering management have already declared performance this half is "broadly in line with expectations" I wouldn't get too excited, as that's the same phrase they used when they posted the last drop in profit and revenue.

Talys wrote:
A company focused on miniatures will release miniatures, regardless of whether it's good or bad for the game.

This has nothing to do with the topic. The problem is not GW releasing miniatures that are inherently bad for the game, it's GW's rule authors being a bunch of incompetent morons. Nothing they've released is impossible to write good rules for, if GW had competent game designers and was willing to invest effort into making good rules.

{irrelevant numbers}
We already talked about this on some other thread, so if we could please forego the discussion on whether analysts care about 40k rules.

And you completely missed the point. My argument had nothing to do with the actual numbers involving GW's share price, it was about where the claims in question come from. The "we're a miniatures company, not a rules company" attitude comes primarily from GW's messages to its own shareholders. It isn't a sensible guiding principle for their rule authors to work by, it's propaganda whose sole purpose is to prevent complaints about the poor quality of the rules from damaging share prices. A shareholder might hear about all the forum complaints and wonder if the company is a good long-term investment, and that kind of statement is intended to let the shareholder dismiss the complaints as a noisy minority that has nothing to do with GW's "true" market.

 Azreal13 wrote:
The long term trends of every company is to steadily increase in value.

But shrinking by double digits YOY is terrible for a PLC with no plausible explanation, and am even bigger drop in profits is also a problem, albeit less so.

I do agree that this topic has been done to death though, and is massively OT.

A few more weeks and we'll have a whole load more info to chew on, but considering management have already declared performance this half is "broadly in line with expectations" I wouldn't get too excited, as that's the same phrase they used when they posted the last drop in profit and revenue.

As you say, soon, there will be threads unending on the next financials

So leave this poor thread to the endless back and forth about what's ruining 40k, or whether it's the crown jewel of gaming or moldy food. It gives me something to do while a hockey game which I have no interest in plays

@Peregrine -- those numbers may be irrelevant to you, but to the one professional analyst tasked with following GAW, it means, Buy.

Talys wrote:
@Peregrine -- those numbers may be irrelevant to you, but to the one professional analyst tasked with following GAW, it means, Buy.

Sigh. Would you please read what I said before responding to it? I didn't say they're irrelevant in determining whether to buy or sell GW stock, I said they're irrelevant because share price has nothing to do with my argument. I don't care if GW stock is $1 per share and crashing or $1000000 per share and expected to increase, that's entirely separate from the question of where GW's "we're a model company" attitude comes from. And the answer is that it comes from GW's statements to their shareholders where, like any company, GW bends the truth to put the best possible spin on everything.

 Peregrine wrote:

Talys wrote:
@Peregrine -- those numbers may be irrelevant to you, but to the one professional analyst tasked with following GAW, it means, Buy.

Sigh. Would you please read what I said before responding to it? I didn't say they're irrelevant in determining whether to buy or sell GW stock, I said they're irrelevant because share price has nothing to do with my argument. I don't care if GW stock is $1 per share and crashing or $1000000 per share and expected to increase, that's entirely separate from the question of where GW's "we're a model company" attitude comes from. And the answer is that it comes from GW's statements to their shareholders where, like any company, GW bends the truth to put the best possible spin on everything.

Sure thing, but the original assertion (I thought it was you, if not, sorry) that I was responding to was that investors were fleeing. I agree that this has nothing to do at all with whether it's a model company, or whatever, and that GW, like every other company, bends the truth to put the best possible spin on the numbers. This just makes them a public company, not a good or bad one. This is also why I asked to drop the whole investor thing... also because it's massively OT.

I will point out that public companies have vastly different pressures than private ones, and this dramatically changes the focus and culture of a company. I was an executive in a company that went public, and from one month to the next, you could swear it was a whole different company.

The problem is they have no interest in who their customers are and why. They're like the techpriests of mars following an ancient diagram of a machine that used to work really well and now isn't working so well anymore. They've been applying the holy incense (price rises) and chanting the liturgy of quality, but without knowing what the problem is they're not likely to fix it.

If you ignore the non-core side of their business you'll see that its been flatlining for years now, with noticable drops when they do certain events (like row embargo combined with raising prices in america). So instead they claim that this is all part of the plan, instead of admitting that they don't have a clue and don't want one.

And encouraging their remaining customers to divide into factions and go after each other will only get them so far. Life in the imperium of kirby is brutal and short, and only the high lords get to reap the benefits. Competitive play is not what is ruining 40k.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Okay. We all know GW is at fault for not being able to produce codexes with perfect internal balance, where each unit is worth considering. But we all know blaming GW will get us nowhere. If we, as a community want to do our part in fixing 40k, aka actually changing stuff, we need to really change our mentality. Because if we dont start with ourselves, how can we expect our opponents to?

When I look at armylists, I realize 4 out of 5 times that people see it as an exercise of putting their grey cells to work in how to maximize damage while not exceeding the points value, rather than seeing it as a framework that allows you to bring some of your collection to the table and show off your modeling and painting progress to your friend you'll be playing against. People tend to forget 40k is a 2 person game, not a 3D equivalent of playing a video game where you develop the mentality of slaughtering all your enemies. Saying that in 40k, both players want to win isnt far from the truth. But more importantly, both players want to have fun. How many of us give thought to that when we spend hours modifying our armylists?

It seems only 3 out of 10 people play games of 40k as an opportunity to see each other's collection. It seems only 3 out of 10 people have "favorite units" in their army based on the way they look, or their background, rather than the amount of damage they inflict on the battlefield.

The reason why you see the same units over and over again in the meta is not (only) because GW sucks at writing balanced codexes, but because we as a community have done our part in powergaming. When we build lists, we think about what causes maximum distruction for its points rather than what unit looks cool/stylish/awesome lorewise and thus include it in our army. When a player starts a new army, he ends up getting advice of what units are must haves based on their battlefield performance rather than what units have the most aesthetically pleasing sculpts. And so, he ends up buying the former and does his part in creating the situation we have today. Advice like "one is none, two is one" subliminally influences people to spend their money more on acquiring an effective armylist than a varied collection. And then they act all surprised and get angry when their codex gets updated and good units become meh and meh units become good (case in point: the Dark Eldar update). We are the reason we see Riptides and Wraithknights, Tigurius and Centurions, Flyrants and Night Scythes instead of Sniper Drones and Harlequins, Cassius and Scout Bikers, Genestealers and Lychguard. We are part of the problem, and part of the reason why the battlefields of 40k dont get to see most of the variety of miniatures in the GW catalogue.

It's kinda like in a traffic jam - everyone hates how he is stuck in a traffic jam, views it as a foreign, blockading entity ruining his day, but doesnt realize he is part of the traffic jam.

Let's get this thread back on topic somewhat. Frankly, your argument has so many holes I don't even know where to begin. Any game with a winner and a loser is inherently competitive. Once you pass the point of kindergarten, playing a game with a winner and loser that you aren't trying to win seems a little ridiculous. I'm a competitive person at heart. I don't like to lose. I don't care if I'm playing beer pong or my team is playing for a national championship, losing sucks. With any other game, you don't have this great divide between players like me and players who just want to have fun. I also play WMH with a menoth "net list" and guess what? Nobody ever complains about my list. I'm not sure why a WAAC TFG is decided by the list he brings rather than his actions during the game. This is something unique to 40k that stems from the incredible lack of balance.

To whoever said 40k "scales better than any other game", that argument is also ridiculous. They tried to take a skirmish based rule set and turn it into a mass battle rule set. They can't quite decide which one they want it to be. Things like the current wound allocation do not belong in a mass battle game. Things like a riptide do not belong in a 500 point game. 40k scales poorly as it cannot seem to choose whether it wants to be a skirmish game or a mass battle game. The rules bloat does not suit a huge game and the model imbalance does not suit a small game.

I do not see how blaming the players for wanting to win an inherently competitive game is going to get us anywhere. What we need to do is blame GW for writing rules with too much bloat, too much randomness and virtually no attempt at balance. Bloat prevents it from being a good mass battle game, imbalance prevents it from being a good skirmish game or good tournament game, randomness prevents it from being a good narrative game, price and complexity prevent it from being a good beer and pretzels game. Whatever you want 40k to be, it fails. It doesn't fail because of the players, it fails because of the incompetence of the people writing the rules. The "we make models, the rules are an afterthought" excuse doesn't hold a lot of weight when you must spend a minimum of over $100 just on rules. If the rules are so inconsequential, why are they so fething expensive?! Because, as peregrine stated, it is an excuse to the shareholders and gullible customers in case they happen to see everyone complaining online about how bad the rules are.

Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.

Exactly, I'm sure actual victims of domestic abuse would agree, when your toys are not exactly how you want them, it's just like getting beaten by your husband.

I'm done here.

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.

Or, there are people on the world with different opinions as you as to what makes a hobby and game exciting and fun to them. You never know.

Meh. What I wrote was stupid. Gunzhard makes a far better point than I.

 Gunzhard wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Talys wrote:
This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. .

But that's ok. If your new car brakes poorly in wet conditions, you can just have a discussion with the other drivers on your streets before you drive anywhere, so that they can make allowances for your car's difficiency.

And this is exactly why playing 40K will kill you and your family, and possibly other (drivers?) players.

Hey, it wasn't my analogy...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.

Does the insensitivity involved in comparing people who buy toys to victims of domestic abuse really need to be pointed out to you or your 'friend'?

 insaniak wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Talys wrote:
This is exactly what happens with cars. They are sold with shortcomings all the time, which companies do not fix until future model years. .

But that's ok. If your new car brakes poorly in wet conditions, you can just have a discussion with the other drivers on your streets before you drive anywhere, so that they can make allowances for your car's difficiency.

And this is exactly why playing 40K will kill you and your family, and possibly other (drivers?) players.

Hey, it wasn't my analogy...

Just to be clear, it wasn't mine either >.< I was responding to someone else's crazy analogy of toy soldiers and tabletop games to... how nobody would put up with cars if they were poorly made.

The problem here is that poor balance isn't just something that comes up when playing "jerks". It happens everywhere because you can have grossly imbalanced forces through no fault other than the fact the player wants to field a particular army type and the rules suck for that army. I don't know why this nonsense always gets trotted out that "just don't play with TFGs" because even if you don't, you still get screwed. This isn't a problem that goes away if you play other casual players, it's a problem that infests the entire game and, for whatever reason, constantly gets ignored by the people defending it as though it's some magical scenario that never occurs unless you play some cutthroat competitive TFG.

When I last wanted to play 40k I wanted to do an all Terminator army, because I loved the fluff for it and I thought it would be awesome to have a 1st Company strike force, the kind assembled for the most dangerous missions that require the best of the best. I even had reason in my fluff to include some Militarum Tempestus forces and even an Imperial Knight as allies, again the idea being these are elite units that would come together for some key mission.

Let's say I have my all Terminator army (with a few support units, like a Venerable Dreadnought and a gunship because they are cool), and I go to the shop and get a game against a fluffy Eldar player who plays Saim-Hann. Since he's Saim-Hann he has a ton of Jetbikes and everything is mobile because that's how Saim-Hann operates. While setting up the game, we forge a quick narrative about a strike force of elite Space Marines landing to occupy an objective that the Eldar control, while the Eldar try to repel them; we even talk about doing a small campaign if our schedules allow in the coming weeks to get in a few more games; the ideal situation for any GW gamer. Now, when we actually play the game he will, under virtually all circumstances, absolutely crush me in a game because Jetbikes are good and Terminators are bad under the rules of the game. We are both playing fluffy armies, neither of us are playing cutthroat competitive, but one army is vastly superior to the other for basically what amounts to no reason at all, just because it is.

What do you do in a situation like that? My opponent isn't a jerk, he's playing a fluffy army. It just happens that because the rules of the game are so unbalanced and bad, his fluffy army is much better than my fluffy army, because reasons. The fact something like that is even possible speaks volumes as to just how poor the rules for 40k is, because there should be trade offs. So my Terminator army is small but extremely durable, very hard to kill and hard-hitting when they strike back. His army is very fast but extremely fragile, so when I do hit him it's devastating. We should have an approximately (within a few percentages) equal chance of winning the game, with the winning factor ultimately coming down to whoever has the better tactics. 40k does nothing to ensure a situation like that.

That should be clear red flags that there are major flaws in the game. 40k's poor rules hurt the narrative players much more than the competitive ones - a competitive player usually doesn't care a lick about the fluff beyond the barest minimum possible and has no qualms taking whatever units are the best for their purposes. A narrative/casual/fluff player is going to get royally screwed because they are the guys MOST likely to pick units based on how they look or how they fit into the theme of the army, and not care about how they perform until it bites them in the ass by costing them games, at which point they usually say feth it and go back to just collecting figures for display, because who the hell wants to play a game that you lose because you picked units that you like and they aren't good because the rules suck?

 Gunzhard wrote:

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.

Exactly, I'm sure actual victims of domestic abuse would agree, when your toys are not exactly how you want them, it's just like getting beaten by your husband.

I'm done here.

This. Considering there are very likely people on this board who have been affected by domestic abuse in some way, I'd stray from invoking it as an analogy for a model company.

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.

Are you sure you've made that analogy offensive enough?

I think it's more an issue of priorities. To some, the good outweighs the bad in 40k. For me, the bad outweighs the good. My priorities are fun, fluffy and fair battles. GW doesn't give me fair and I need fair to have fun. I don't care if I lose, but I need to know that I can win. Too often in 40k I lost before the game started. That's not fun. And, for a long time the fluff battles kept me going, but then they added loyalists summoning demons, elite units outright sucking and basically punished fluffy players for playing. So, I lost my three priorities of the game. For some, their priorities are different. I don't think they're 'battered' foolish or stupid, I just think they have a very different idea of what makes a good game.

To the OP, I agree partially with what you´re saying. Players are a part of the problem whether they admit it or not, but the core lies at the rules.

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
Ill repeat what a friend once told me: GW fans are like a Hospital Ward full of battered housewives, still making excuses for their husband GW.

<insert analogy of haters, a mental ward, acute depression & paranoia here>

It´s a shame really, some folk using so much of their time and effort on trying to spread the hate.

Just played 4 games of 40K over the weekend, hitting 70 matches of 7th this year. Had a an absolute blast.

Dudes, I think you should take the white knight armor off and relax a little bit. 0 women were harmed during the typing of that analogy. Get a grip.

Bad taste is bad taste. This forum doesn't exist in a vacuum. Some of us would like to discuss things without childishness. That includes dismissing with tired "white knight SWJ" deflections.

VanHallan wrote:
Dudes, I think you should take the white knight armor off and relax a little bit. 0 women were harmed during the typing of that analogy. Get a grip.

No, I don't think we're going to 'relax' about jokes involving domestic violence. Regardless of whether anyone was 'harmed' by it, it was an offensive and insensitive thing to say.



So, the topic, eh?



Edit - No, seriously guys, the topic. The point has been made, and any further comments in that direction will be removed.

Okay, the meat of what they're saying (without the weird comparisons) is:

1) In any other service/product, if the product/service is faulty they don't make the customers fix it themselves.

2) GW customers keep on defending GW in spite of GW not caring for their own customers.


Discuss.

 heartserenade wrote:
Okay, the meat of what they're saying (without the weird comparisons) is:

1) In any other service/product, if the product/service is faulty they don't make the customers fix it themselves.

2) GW customers keep on defending GW in spite of GW not caring for their own customers.


Discuss.

There are tons of customer service horror stories out there about companies refusing to refund/deal with defective or inadequate merchandise. I certainly don't think that's limited to GW.

While GW does lots of things I don't like, I still get enough enjoyment out of their product/service/performance that I'm willing to give them my money. In that regard they aren't any different from Apple, Microsoft, Sean Connery, Metallica, General Motors, Wal-mart, or Lowe's.

If they've crossed the line for you, and you no longer wish to give them your financial support, that's okay. It's a personal boundary that's going to vary from individual to individual, and I'm not there yet.

I think we need to make a distinction here for the conversation to be productive.

40K is not faulty, it operates, in the main, as it is intended, while it may sometimes be difficult to figure out the intent behind certain rules and procedures, to the point where a judgment call is needed, I doubt there are very many games that literally stop because of a rules dispute and never resume (even if it comes down to the dreaded 4+)

An entirely more appropriate phrase, I feel, is "fit for purpose."

One could argue there is something inherently faulty about 40K, but I think the stronger argument is whether or not it measures up to it's customers needs and expectations, or how it is sold by the company in the first place.

It appears to me there is a massive disconnect between what the game devs are trying to create.

An open game 'sand box' where people who think and play exactly like they do can create cool and fun narrative games by 'making stuff up as they go along.'

And the way GW plc want to present the rules and games as a ' professionally developed to support random pick up games and organised competitive play.'

However, even as a game written for 'open narrative play, with lots of player co-operation.'The 40k rule set is still very over complicated and poorly defined.*

*As a rule set has a clearly defined function.(To instruct players how to play the game.)The 40k rules can be objectively compared to other rule sets in terms of clarity and brevity of the rules.

OK guys, i dont believe that competitive play is ruining 40K, I DO BELIEVE HOWEVER that people who waoc are the ones who are RUINING it. honestly i'm an extremely new player, and when i go to my LGS there isnt a single person there who says play with what you WANT, its play with this model or that model.... those will win you games, or USE THIS ARMY you'll win....

point is I DONT CARE ABOUT WINNING, i want both me and my opponent to be able to enjoy showcasing our models, and having fun with the game, i want to be able to laugh about my opponents bad luck... and be able to laugh when the tables turn and i'm having the bad luck.... nobody ever stays for after battle reports to talk the game over and see how hey went or how to better the list or army.

If we all decided to make a list based on fluff and casual play, AS WELL as competitive, then just before you play your opponent ask them "is this a competitive game or just for fun"
everybody wants to enjoy the game.. not be wiped out turn 3(or have one unit left)

and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's they dont take enough time for it. like take the DE codex... all they did was remove every single named character except urien, and Drazhar i believe, and urien is in a supplement, fluff is pretty much the same, a few models got moved around(changed battlefield role), and we lost the harlequins, if they're not doing so right now i believe they should take EVERY codex look at it deeply and begin looking at ways to balance the codexes or include more variety for all the codexes... not really fair when alot of armies have named special characters and we're going up with a generic HQ unit.....

ok thats my rant have a nice day

 asdrubeal vect124 wrote:
OK guys, i dont believe that competitive play is ruining 40K, I DO BELIEVE HOWEVER that people who waoc are the ones who are RUINING it. honestly i'm an extremely new player, and when i go to my LGS there isnt a single person there who says play with what you WANT, its play with this model or that model.... those will win you games, or USE THIS ARMY you'll win....

I'm not seeing a problem with players here. I'm seeing a problem with a system whereby using the models you want to use greatly decreases your chance of winning.

That being said, a while ago I posted an IG list on Warseer and asked for advice. The response I got can be summed up as "units X, Y and Z" are the most broken right now - so scrap everything else and just spam those." Thanks for the help, I guess...

 asdrubeal vect124 wrote:

point is I DONT CARE ABOUT WINNING, i want both me and my opponent to be able to enjoy showcasing our models, and having fun with the game, i want to be able to laugh about my opponents bad luck... and be able to laugh when the tables turn and i'm having the bad luck.... nobody ever stays for after battle reports to talk the game over and see how hey went or how to better the list or army.

Ok, but 40k is a competitive game - wanting to win is not wrong.

Players should be able to use the models they want, and still have a good chance of winning.

 asdrubeal vect124 wrote:

If we all decided to make a list based on fluff and casual play, AS WELL as competitive, then just before you play your opponent ask them "is this a competitive game or just for fun"
everybody wants to enjoy the game.. not be wiped out turn 3(or have one unit left)

Sigh. As has been said before, this argument just doesn't work - because it assumes that any fluffy lists must also be uncompetitive. This is not the case. An Eldar list with a ton of Wave Serpents and Jetbikes is fluffy. So is a DE list with just wyches, Bloodbrides, Hellions and Succubi. But, whilst both of those lists are fluffy, they are not even remotely balanced against one another.

Furthermore, why should there be a difference between competitive and fluffy lists? To me, that's just awful game design.

 asdrubeal vect124 wrote:

and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's they dont take enough time for it. like take the DE codex... all they did was remove every single named character except urien, and Drazhar i believe, and urien is in a supplement, fluff is pretty much the same, a few models got moved around(changed battlefield role), and we lost the harlequins, if they're not doing so right now i believe they should take EVERY codex look at it deeply and begin looking at ways to balance the codexes or include more variety for all the codexes... not really fair when alot of armies have named special characters and we're going up with a generic HQ unit.....

Sorry, but it's not just the codices - it's the core rules as well. 5th had pretty solid core rules, with some unbalanced books. But, 7th is just a mess - it's a system that's trying to encompass everything, but utterly fails at it because it's so unfocussed.

 asdrubeal vect124 wrote:
and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's

That would be the development team, which is an internal team, meaning they are GW employees and thus are representing the company. So yes, as long as Kelly and the Crud (and others) are working at GW it is GWs fault.

then perhaps they need to STOP selling 40K for awhile and take a very very good look at their game... also because it allows us players a chance to catch up(those with no money) i think if they decided to do that, and only sell the current products they have, it will probably be good and they can tell current players AND new players that the 8th edition is getting a VERY serious look, and they WANT to keep us all playing.... i havent noticed any "broken" or OP units except maybe the Reavers in DE( i dont really play anything else) with cluster caltrops

I think people are always ready to quickly point out that they don't care about winning. However, I think when they start losing enough games consistently, this attitude starts to turn around.

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

 asdrubeal vect124 wrote:
and its not really GW fault, its the people who write/rewrite the codex's

That would be the development team, which is an internal team, meaning they are GW employees and thus are representing the company. So yes, as long as Kelly and the Crud (and others) are working at GW it is GWs fault.

oh my apologies then i'm wrong


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Accolade wrote:
I think people are always ready to quickly point out that they don't care about winning. However, I think when they start losing enough games consistently, this attitude starts to turn around.

my win/loss/tie streak below
0/50/2
i'm still same attitude